What Matters
by Strae
Summary: After one horny night alone with a webcam, Edward enters a surprisingly intimate friendship with a stranger online. He someday plans to meet this 'Jazz' girl he's become so oddly enraptured with; too bad Jazz isn't exactly a 'girl'.
1. Chapter 1

_**Summary: **After one horny night alone with a webcam, Edward enters a surprisingly intimate friendship with a stranger online. He someday plans to meet this 'Jazz' girl he's become so oddly enraptured with; too bad Jazz isn't exactly a 'girl'._

_**Coupling: **Edward & Jasper_

_**Note:** This story is slash, meaning boy/boy intimacy of all kinds. You've been warned! ;) Giant thanks to my fic BFF Lou-La for forcing me to try my hand at slash. Be gentle!  
_

* * *

"Don't eat all my fucking Ho-Hos this time," my roommate warns. "I'm trusting you with my life here."

"I _won't_. But dude..." I lift my head up from my mattress to look at him seriously. Emmett pauses from packing his twenty million white undershirts into a duffel bag he'd placed on his bed, raising his eyebrows in question. "Take pictures of your girlfriend in a bikini for me," I beg.

He chucks his pillow at me. "Fuck you!" he shouts with a laugh. Then he hurriedly scrambles over to my bed. "Oh wait, shit, I probably need that." He waggles his eyebrows and adds, "Well, if I'm not sleeping with Rosie, that is."

I hand him his pillow and slam my head back into my mattress with a melodramatic huff.

_I wish I had a girlfriend to sleep with._

My best friend-slash-roommate is going to Cancun, Mexico, with his sexy blonde girlfriend with great tits and other hot female friends for Spring Break. Cancun is the number one place in the world for sun, sex and binge drinking. College kids of all kinds unite there during the spring holiday. I was originally planning on going with them, but... not anymore.

Something about me lying in bed, cellphone gripped tightly in hand and occasionally sipping a room-temperature Pabst on a Friday night makes Emmett frown. "This is sad. You should be out getting scores of pussy, man. Seriously." He scratches and cocks his head. "She isn't going to call you back."

I wince, then immediately snap, "How the fuck do you know?"

He shakes his head knowingly and retreats back to his bed. "Jake is pussy-whipped for her sweet ass and she knows it. Bella won't leave him for you anytime soon." He turns his attention back to his duffel, mumbling a barely-spoken, "Sorry, Edward."

I scowl, but say nothing. My chest actually aches when I think about her.

Bella was the only chick I'd ever really loved—but something felt kind of... _wrong_. We had dated for almost a year, went through the ups and downs like every serious couple did... But the unspoken flaw in our relationship was obvious to us both, holding us back. We never were completely comfortable around one another. Neither of us knew why, exactly, but we could sense it.

She felt that weakness more than I, and I suppose all of the worry it caused made her break down. Bella eventually broke things off with me, the only real reason being that she didn't feel _secure_ staying in the relationship. As if I'd leave her for someone else.

Oh. And then she totally ran into the tan, muscly arms of _him_.

It had been a few weeks since we'd split up, and by now I could assume it had all been planned. She leaves me, then she depends on Jacob for emotional support and nightly hot dickings... Yeah. I could believe that_._

Bella is best friends with Rosalie, so she is naturally going with Rose to Cancun. I can't go, not only because we'd broken up, but because Jacob is also gonna be there. And it's obvious that I will beat the shit out of him if given the chance, so my invitation was not-so-politely withdrawn.

Emmett packs the rest of his clothes and toiletries in silence. By the time he finishes, he piles up all of his luggage for the next week and heads for the door.

"See ya, bro," he calls just as he began to step foot outside of our dorm room. "Oh, hey! And remember, say no-no to Ho-Hos. Or I'll kick your ass."

"Bring me nude pics of Rosalie," I tease.

"Yeah fucking right," he booms a laugh. And then he is gone.

As soon as the door clicks closed, I bolt up out of bed and make a beeline straight for the kitchen. Emmett has a crazy sweet tooth, and the chocolate cake and sugary, creamy center of the legendary Ho-Ho is his latest weakness. He hates when I eat his shit, and I love to piss him off, so what's the first thing I do when Emmett leaves?

Yeah, that's right. I eat his fucking Ho-Hos.

I have a week to eat them all, so I only grab one for now. By the time I'm finished with the too-sweet cake, I'm thirsty and drink his Vitamin Water, too, simply because he's left it behind. Emmett should really know better by now.

When I go back into our bedroom—we sadly share a room because of we live in a tiny college dormitory—I immediately spot Emmett's laptop computer sitting on his bed. It seems he's left it behind, too, though I'm not sure if it was intentional or not.

I plop down on his bed and set the laptop in my lap. It turns on immediately once I open it, not having been shut off or logged out. I don't expect to find anything worthwhile on his unfamiliar computer. And I definitely don't expect to find a nude picture of Rosalie as his background.

But I do.

My brain takes a few seconds too long to actually register what I'm seeing. The desktop background has Rosalie lying down on a red bedspread, her light blonde hair tossed all around her head as she teasingly sucks on the tip of... a penis. Which is also kind of shoved in between her tits.

It's clear she and Emmett must have been tit-fucking, or something. Rosalie has perky C-cups with nice rosy nipples, sultry bedroom eyes and a cock in her mouth, but the presence of said cock ruins the photo. God dammit, Emmett. No one wants to see your dick.

The urge to find more of those dirty pictures (sans penis) is too tempting for any horny college boy like me to resist. I browse through Emmett's pictures folder, digging through a bunch of stupid party photos of him and his bros getting drunk. Eventually I find an unnamed folder with more pictures of her in various naughty positions.

I learn that this girl is a very, very sensual and flexible woman, and Emmett is a very, very lucky man.

By the time I finish perusing through the last of the photos in the folder, my dick is as hard as a rock and shoving painfully against the bottom of the laptop, which is now looking rather lopsided. I'm throbbing and horny as hell, but I just can't find the will to jack off to my best friend's girlfriend like this. Snooping around for her nude pics is one thing, beating your meat to them is a different sin altogether.

I'm low, but I'm not _that_ low... Maybe.

I copy all of the pictures of Rosalie's sexy ass to my flash drive so I can put them on my own laptop later, just in case I change my mind, or if I someday need them as blackmail. I've never been on Emmett's computer before, so I take my time looking through his bookmarked websites and browser history. Emmett apparently has a major addiction to adult chatrooms, online poker games and lesbian pornography. _Jackpot._

There's something about the mysterious chatroom website that stands out the most. My dick is still hard, and I probably need to jack off, but my own favorite porn sites can wait for me to finish trifling through all of Emmett's stuff first. This shit's golden. What else could Emmett be hiding?

After memorizing the chatroom's link, I relocate myself to my own laptop and investigate it.

The world has a lot of exhibitionists, I realize. Of all the web cameras hosted in the chatroom, there are a couple hot women masturbating, a couple decent-looking dudes also masturbating, one couple who are actively fucking, a handful of fat dudes and... Holy_ fuck,_ is that what I think it is?

Traumatized already, I cautiously click on one image that has a brunette's webcam up. The page loads so that I can see her from her cam, while beside her camera's feed, the text of hundreds of horny men barrage her with requests and compliments.

_Nice nips _

_Beautiful body. Can u show us more?_

_Show pussy! _

_I wanna have those lips wrapped around my 17 inch cock. _

Some of these comments make me laugh. Some make me scoff at how crass or outrageous they are, too, yet the girl doesn't seem offended, but rather flattered by all of the attention. She's teasing her audience by licking her fingertips, then circling them around a nipple. And her audience raptly devours it all, showing their united approval with profuse amounts of chat speak and caps lock.

I move along to other webcams, curiosity getting the best of me again. There's a couple getting it on—a pudgy woman, and a thin guy with less-than-standard equipment. Even so, they have over a thousand viewers, with compliments flying from both ends of the spectrum. The viewers completely adore his tiny penis and her fat rolls.

What the hell?

The internet, as I've been told, has little moral standard, and I suddenly kind of agree with that statement. These people don't care that they're fucking in front of thousands of people, and the viewers don't care that they're intruding on what should have been someone's private business. Instead, they're free to watch voyeuristically as this couple gets their jollies in front of the camera.

Wow.

I'd never admit it to another, but personally, I'd probably consider myself an attention whore—in a different way from these people, of course. I make my hair look crazy-but-kinda-sexy on purpose. I wear band shirts, torn up jeans and Converse, and I've graffiti'ed shit and destroyed public property simply to seem cooler. I drink and smoke socially just to be deemed worthy of hanging with the 'in' crowd. I enjoy the attention.

Of course, I'd deny the truth if you called me out on it, but internally, I know my real motivation for wanting to be popular.

We all desire acceptance and praise, albeit usually on a subconscious level. I love praise. I love being popular, getting compliments on my appearance, grades, particular _skills_... But I have never done something as extreme as this. What kind of person has sex for the world to see?

So _public_ these people are! Yet none of those with cameras seem bashful. It's amazing how much attention these brave people gather, even when they aren't necessarily good-looking.

And as quickly as I realize that much, I suddenly have the bizarre urge to join them. I want to see what the public would say—I'm sexy to the public eye, _right?_

With every compliment the scrawny, less-than-average man gets, it makes me that much more than reassured that if I did the same—exposing myself like he does to the world—that perhaps I'd get just as much positive feedback, if not more.

I want to see what would happen. I want to get my ego stroked. It's impulsive, and stupid, and probably a little fucking egotistical, but I wanna show off my cock. He deserves some praise now and again. And with Bella out of the picture, he definitely isn't getting enough praise.

My dick is still kind of hard... I'm gonna be cumming anyway, so it would be rather of selfish of me to not give these horndogs a show. Why the fuck not?

Without thinking over it twice, I steal the webcam that Emmett owns—I'd seen him use it before, but for other purposes, hopefully. I install it to my laptop, and within minutes I'm a registered user on the site, with a webcam running and several viewers already watching, waiting, listening. Damn, these people are fast.

The camera is set on the dresser next to my bed, and I position my pillows up where I can lie back, so the women_—_well, _whoever—_can see me, full frontal.

_Hello sexy,_ the first viewer says to me.

Several other people post similar things as I adjust the camera so they can see my face and chest. I respond verbally with a shy, "Hi," and again, I'm spammed with a dozen more comments about my so-called 'sexy voice'. These people praise everything, I figure.

Almost immediately, people ask me to take off my clothes and expose my cock. That is what they're here for, I suppose. I set the laptop beside me on the bed, and the viewer count in my chatroom begins to hike up as I strip off my tee, then wriggle out of my pants. Predictably, these strangers fawn over my six-almost-eight-pack abs and the thin line of brown hair leading from my belly button downward.

Once everyone's had enough of my face and chest, they request I tilt the camera down. And really, who am I to deny them? My morals are already fucked, anyway.

It's more difficult getting my erection to return when my mind isn't focused solely on sex. It's focused on all of these people who are staring at my body with hungry eyes. I can't see them, but I know what they're doing. These strangers are getting off by watching _me _get off, and that oddly doesn't freak me out as much as it definitely should.

Holy hell, I'm such a slut.

Fuck, at least I'm not asking for monetary donations.

I'm only in my boxers now, so everyone can see the outline of my semi-hard cock as I begin to tug and squeeze it through the cotton. A bubble of stage fright curls up my throat, and I swallow it down nervously, trying to momentarily forget that I'm jacking off in front of an unknown amount of strangers. There seems to be a lot of them. Oh, God.

Closing my eyes, I lie my head back onto the pillows and try to visualize what I like most in a woman. Bella's silky brown hair pops into my head, but I quickly shove her out of mind. Oh, _fuck, fuck, fuck_ no.

_Blonde hair,_ I think. Rosalie is blonde. Rosalie... She's hot. I'd definitely tap that.

Begrudgingly, I think about Rosalie's perfect tits, thin little waist, shaved pussy... I imagine what it'd feel like to fuck her mouth, all pouty lips and big blue eyes and blonde hair you can grab fistfuls of.

_Yeah, blonde is good._

And then I was chafing myself. Grimacing, I open my eyes again to see that I had been gripping my swollen cock a little too hard through the fabric. The viewers watching me are now practically screaming at me to remove my boxers.

I lift my hips slightly and push my boxers down a few inches to whip out_ the beast_. I snort a laugh at myself. My dick has never been much of a beast—he does his job perfectly, but he isn't exactly intimidating.

The viewers, however, disagree.

_whoaa nice cock_

_WOW, I'd love to suck that!_

_Mmmmm yummy_

_Did you just snort?_

Dozens of other encouragements, requests and compliments are posted. The last comment sticks out the most, however, making me grin. I reply to 'JazzyJazz' with an embarrassed, "Yeah, I did, Jazzy."

This 'Jazzy' person then asks, _Aww, that's adorkable. :) Are you straight?_

The others back their question with less-innocent yet similar ones of their own. By their usernames I can tell that most of those watching my cam are gay or bisexual men, not women like I'd firstly assumed.

To put it bluntly, I love pussy. I mean, fuck, I can tell when another man looks attractive, but I've never wanted to suck a guy's cock or anything. There is nothing wrong with dudes liking dicks, in my book, I just am not one of those people. I love _my own_ cock, but that's about it.

But what do I say to my viewers? They're pretty much all dudes. Jazzy might be a chick though, since they called me 'adorkable' (what man says 'adorkable'?), but I don't know that for sure.

In my best attempt to not offend the masses, I type out, _Yeah, I only like the ladies. Sorry guys._

Their disappointment is obvious. Most responses are from men trying to urge me to 'experiment'; I apparently just need the right kind of lovin' to alter my perspective. One woman cheers gleefully, and the remaining percent of viewers seem to be sad at my divulged information. JazzyJazz, however, doesn't even comment.

Sighing, I grab a bottle of lube from the dresser beside my bed and squeeze a little into my palm. Once my hand is nice and slick, a soft grunt escapes my lips as I twist my palm over the head of my cock, tightening my fist at the top before sliding back down to the base. It's been a while—having a hand on my cock, even my own, makes me feel better than I have all week.

Closing my eyes again, I try to visualize another fantasy woman—not Rosalie. I'm an asshole for jacking off to the image of my best friend's girl, I realize, but I can't really think of anyone else. Bypassing the guilt, instead of Rosalie's face, I imagine a nameless blonde woman who I've never seen before.

She has a petite, thin, curvy frame and a tight ass that is just made for squeezing. Her cerulean eyes look up as she flips her long, golden-blonde hair over her shoulder. The tip of her tongue flits out to lick my cock, followed by her plump lips enveloping me fully. She sucks hard and bobs up and down, while her tongue trails figure-eights along the bottom of my length and tip. One hand comes up and strokes what she doesn't keep in her mouth, while her free hand trails down to her own sweet spot and she fingers herself, wishing my cock was fucking that tight, wet pussy instead of her mouth.

After several minutes, I'm panting and thrusting up into my fist, letting my imagination run wild. The idea of fucking a hot blondie brings me right to the edge of orgasm. Fuck, the next half-decent blonde girl I find is gonna get her pussy torn up. I swear, there is something about blondes...

I open my eyes and blink several times, suddenly remembering I have a very large audience watching my every move.

They're all spamming me with suggestions again. I readjust my hand's movements to a slow stroke for a moment, waiting for the only viewer that has stood out so far to post something. I don't have to wait long.

_You're looking ready to explode. You gonna cum all over your chest, baby?_

Jazzy is a dirty girl, I realize. Well, I assume she's a girl. Jazzy seems to be a pretty feminine name, so I bet her real name is probably Jasmine or something. A smirk stretches across my mouth as I think about a faceless girl, somewhere in the world, who is watching me jerk my cock and touching herself. Is she young, old? Pretty? Wet?

Feeling bold, I ask her, _Are you wet for me, Jazzy?_

Her response is even more risqué.

_Staring at that dick is making me dripping wet for you. I wish you could fuck me so badly, my fingers are nothing compared to that thick cock._

_Fuck._ She is quite the dirty girl, then... I grip my cock harder and quicken the pace of my hand. Instantaneously, I imagine Jazzy is the petite blonde girl from my fantasy—practically begging for my cock as she sucks me off, her fingers petting herself to orgasm as she takes me deep in her throat. Dirty words, a dirtier mouth; I'd love to fuck a woman like that.

My balls tighten and I feel the familiar twist in my gut. A few more strokes and I finally cum with a low moan, my dick pulsing as my seed spurts out onto my stomach.

_I wanna lick you clean, _Jazzy says. I stifle another groan and squeeze out another drop of cum. It takes me a minute to catch my breath, and as soon as I do, she knocks it out of me again.

_Taste it for me?_

I touch the warm pool of cum laying around my bellybutton. It's already getting cooler with the air, but it's still fresh from the source. I have never tasted my own cum before, and of course not that of any other man, so I don't know what to expect. Cautiously, I swipe my index finger against a streak of cum and tilt the webcam up toward my face.

"For you, Jazzy," I oblige with a grin, licking my finger clean. The taste is immediate, bitter and salty and frankly kind of repulsive—but she requested it. I pretend to enjoy it, moaning softly against my finger and licking the thick liquid off of it. The chatroom practically applauds me, urging me to swipe more of it from my stomach. I shake my head and laugh.

"I'll be right back," I tell my audience, then get up to clean.

After wiping myself off with a wet cloth, I return to my laptop. The majority of viewers have abandoned me already. JazzyJazz welcomes my return, however, exalting me for giving them a great show.

I suddenly get the feeling of stage fright again, my face heating up as I rub my neck anxiously. "So that was good? You liked it?"

_I loved it,_ she reassures. _I came so hard, watching you, you beautiful boy._

"Edward," I correct. I look away from the camera, knowing I'm blushing. "I'm Edward," I mumble again.

_Call me Jazz, _she types. _Hey, do you have an instant messenger?_

* * *

That is how we begin talking, and really, that's how our friendship starts.

This mysterious Jazz—I don't know who she is, where she is, what she's like. All I know is that she likes the look of my cock, and that her fingers speak dirtier than my mind can.

We talk over an instant messenger. It becomes a daily thing. I try to find other things to do while Emmett's away in Cancun, so I go out with other friends to parties. My original intent is to get laid, but as soon as a woman lands in my snare, I always then lose interest. For whatever reason, I prefer talking to this random girl I've met over the internet. She's just... appealing.

Jazz is sweet, really. A joker. We talk about random things, silly things, serious things. She doesn't tell me much about whether or not she has a boyfriend—she once mentioned an ex-boyfriend, but as far as I know, she's single.

She tells me that she's twenty-one, just a year younger than me. She lives in Seattle, Washington, a little over two hours away from where my parents live in Port Angeles—I tell her this. She's surprised that we must have lived close to each other once, years ago, in Washington. I'm also currently in my final semester of college in Chicago—what I don't tell her is that I'm going to be moving back to Port Angeles once I graduate in three months.

The moment she tells me she's a blonde with blue eyes, I fucking die. _Blonde. Jazz is fucking blonde. With blue eyes! _I plead for her to give me pictures. She says she's athletic, but I can't predict what she looks like off of that. After a bit of repetitive coercion, Jazz finally sends me pictures of herself.

The image she gives me looks like a fat girl's MySpace photo, though she isn't overweight at all, but very lean—the photo is angled just right for maximum hotness, I'm guessing. That's normal for chicks.

Her hair is short, cropped just above her shoulders. I'm not used to short hair, but it's wavy, tame, thin, and a dirty, golden blonde like from in my fantasy. That alone is enough to make my dick twitch. It covers a small portion of her face, but it's unnecessary.

She has high cheekbones and a narrow face, a cute nose, and thin, almost red, kissable lips. I can't see the rest of her body, but from what I can see, she is pretty. Better than average, I'd say, but not the hottest woman on the planet either. I'd enjoy thoroughly fucking her.

The days go by. Emmett and company return from Cancun with plenty of tales to tell. I don't particularly feel like listening, though—not that I hold much resentment toward Bella, but I just don't want to hear what they have to say. Bliss is ignorance, in this case.

One night, after school starts up again, I tell Jazz about what it's like here in college. It's a mixture of bland and harsh, but my parents are paying for my education, so I can't really complain.

In return, Jazz gives me a rant about how amazing living in Seattle is. She lives right down the street from the Space Needle landmark, only two blocks away. Across the street is a wonderful coffee shop called World Cup Coffee that she goes to almost every day for a muffin and mocha.

She also complains that not all is well in Seattle—the tips she's getting as a waitress continually get stiffed, and she sometimes can't even sleep at night with how loud her neighbors fuck and fight. She's thankful that she only has one apartment next to hers; having another noisy neighbor would drive her crazy.

Just as I begin to reply, Emmett comes home with Rosalie grinding on his dick. Usually I leave when they want to fuck, but not tonight. I stay in the dorm, on my bed with my laptop, dishing to my new online friend about all of the fake moaning noises Rosalie makes as Emmett humps her no less than ten feet from me. Emmett probably thinks he's teasing or one-upping me—if I didn't have Jazz to talk to, I'd probably be jealous. But I'm not anymore.

Rosalie has a pretty body, a pretty face, but they don't mean much. Talking to Jazz has me hooked. She's a hilarious person and I wish I could meet her. Even if Jazz was ugly, she's a good enough gal to make me like her. I can't deny it—I'm crushing on a girl I hardly even know.

As the couple fucks, Rosalie's moans are for effect, but her boyfriend doesn't realize this. He doesn't see the signs that she's throwing out. She's faking, Emmett, why can't you tell? Of course, this is hilarious for me and Jazz, but I don't outwardly show how much I'm ridiculing them.

Across the room, as Emmett shoves his face into her neck, his hips pounding into hers, Rosalie's eyes catch mine. The aroused coital expression she wears makes my dick stir, even though I don't bear much attraction to her anymore. I set my laptop aside for a moment to readjust my erection through my tented jeans.

Rosalie watches my hand, moans again, and moves her own hand in between their gyrating hips. She touches herself as he fucks her, her eyes hesitantly watching me, as if I'm more interesting. She finally climaxes with a real, soft, throaty moan coming from her that sounds far different from the loud fake ones she'd given us just moments before.

I lose interest, instead tilting my head back down into my laptop to continue talking to my online friend.

* * *

_Let me see your butt, _she demands.

I smile in front of the webcam, knowing Jazz can see me. She doesn't have a camera that she can hook up to her computer but I've still got mine. I have urged her before to buy a webcam so that I can truly see her, but she's reluctant. For now, I give her private shows, whether it's for talking or for masturbating. It makes me happy to know she enjoys seeing my face more than my dick, or even my ass.

A couple months of chatting online has put us in a limbo stage in our... friendship. I can tell she has a crush on me, and I on her, but we don't mention this at all. I want to meet her so badly. My dick is traitorous—I can hardly get aroused watching porn anymore, and I have no motivation to bring home any women. I feel the same tug I felt for Bella for Jazz, and that's scary, because I don't even know her that well.

"My butt?" I ask Jazz, smirking in the way I know makes her hot. "I thought only gay guys were into seeing men's asses."

Jazz and I are becoming more intimate with one another. She gave me more pictures of herself from different angles, and I was right in assuming she was fairly pretty. She doesn't give me any body shots, but she does describe her breasts and pussy, and that's good enough for my imagination. She's very shy when it comes to her body, even though her fingers can type the dirtiest things.

_No, girls like hot man butt too_, she answers.

I turn the webcam and laptop so she can see me as I stand in the middle of the room. I'm already in just boxers and an undershirt, so I strip off my shirt and throw it to the floor.

I'm in the process of teasing my boxers down over my ass cheeks when Emmett barges through the front door. He pauses to stare at my pale ass for a moment, then at the laptop and webcam, then at my ass again.

"Don't ask," I say bluntly.

Emmett shuts the door and shuffles into the kitchen. "We've all been there before," he says, nonjudgmental.

I shift my hips in front of the camera like I'm some kind of runway model, showing off some new pair of underwear, or lack thereof. I smack my naked ass playfully for Jazz, knowing she'll get a laugh out of it. The simplicity of teasing each other is just another thing that calls me to her like a siren. We're simple, and that works.

I pull up my boxers after I figure Jazz has had enough. Emmett comes back into our room once it's safe again.

He uses his own laptop for a while, but I can tell he's kind of staring at me as I talk to Jazz. The webcam is shut off and set aside for the night, but I continue chatting with her for another hour or so before we decide to part ways. Reluctant 'goodnight's are shared, then she goes offline, leaving me feeling lonely without her.

"Who's the girl?" Emmett asks.

I jerk my head up to look at him. "What?"

"The girl," he repeats slowly. "You haven't grinned this much since Bella." He pauses with his mouth hanging open, then quickly adds, "Please don't tell me you're trying to talk to her again."

"No," I say, furrowing my brow. "Jazz. Jasmine, I think. She's just... I don't know, this blonde girl I've been talking to lately."

"Blonde." Emmett licks the front of his top teeth, almost as if he were savoring the mere idea. "Mm. Got any pictures?" I click around on my laptop through my saved pictures until I find a pretty one of Jazz. I flip the screen in his direction. He narrows his eyes and leans closer to examine the photo. Something he sees must confuse him, causing him to tilt his head like a dog. "You fucked her yet?" he asks. I shake my head 'no', then Emmett leans back and sighs. "I don't know, she kinda looks like a dude."

I glare at him and spin the laptop back in my direction. "No fucking way," I snap offensively.

"Is that an Adam's apple?" Emmett asks rhetorically. "I don't know, man. She's kinda pretty, but she looks like she could be, uh, batting for the other team..."

"She's definitely not a lesbian." I shove the laptop closed bitterly and huff. "Besides, I thought you liked lesbians?"

"Who told you that?" he asks, then immediately disregards it. "Whatever. Just make sure you don't see a bulge in her shorts or anything. Some women will give you 'pickle surprise', if you know what I mean, dude. My cousin met this one chick at a bar once, she totally had a di—"

"Emmett," I growl. "Shut the fuck up."

He shrugs and returns to playing his online poker, claiming, "I didn't say anything."

* * *

The next morning I stare at Jazz's pictures, trying to comprehend what Emmett saw in them. Her jaw seems more pronounced than for most women, maybe, and there does seem to be a slight Adam's apple in her throat. But that could be just genetics, or bad luck. That doesn't mean she has a penis.

I don't want to believe the possibility of Emmett's words. Jazz is definitely a female. A good one at that, who's wittier, funnier and cooler than any other chick I've ever met.

As time passes, Jazz and I do not progress much in our relationship, other than becoming closer emotionally, at least on my end. She begins leaving little kisses and heart symbols on the end of messages, so perhaps she's become more emotionally invested, too. She claims not to have a phone, so I cannot call her. She still won't buy a webcam and refuses to let me purchase one for her.

Call me stupid, but aside from that, I want to... _date_ her. I've never done the online dating thing, and before now, I've always thought it to be severely idiotic. What's the point of dating someone you'll rarely, if ever, see face-to-face?

But now I can comprehend the appeal of dating a practical stranger. There are still beautiful, easy women falling at my feet, but I'm rarely interested in them. Instead, my heart tells me to bond with this girl I've seen only in photos, spoken to only through technology. My brain's logic doesn't overrule my heart's anymore.

A month later, Emmett and I graduate, and I finally grow the balls to tell her I'm moving back to Washington. Soon.

Jazz is clearly surprised. I suggest we should get coffee at her favorite place sometime, but she disagrees, saying that the distance from Port Angeles to Seattle would take hours to drive and she wouldn't want to put me through the hassle. It's too far. Not worth the gas money. Her work schedule is also suddenly jammed. She really wishes we could meet, but it's so _improbable_.

I take her answer with a grain of salt. I'll trust in her judgment for now, but the rejection hurts just the same. She doesn't want to see me.

My things are all packed away, my laptop included, the night before I get on the plane to go home to Port Angeles. I lie on my bed, ankles criss-crossing and one hand propped behind my head. In my free hand, I hold a printed copy of one of Jazz's photos. She's smiling at the camera in a sly way, as if she knows something I don't.

Like a lovesick puppy, I kiss her photocopied lips and imagine how great it would be, if only it were the real thing.

I desperately want to meet her, and that feeling isn't dissipating.


	2. Chapter 2

The collar of my dress shirt feels too tight around my neck.

My fingers rise up to loosen it, but pause just millimeters from the fabric. My mother spent time perfecting my appearance today. I drop my hand, not selfish enough to ruin her effort. I must look my best at all times, she says, especially when pretty ladies are near.

Esme aspires to be a grandmother. I can tell by the gleam in her eye what she expects of me: I must find a socially acceptable woman to court, wed, bed, and make X-amount of babies with. My mother firmly believes that time is limited for a reason, so we must work hard, and breed young.

My father couldn't care less what I do with myself, as he's always been one to let me govern my own life. At seventeen I was caught stealing rum from his liquor cabinet—Carlisle told me that I had to pay him for it, and that I mustn't do anything stupid to wind up dead or in jail. Then he promptly handed me his shot glasses.

Every big decision I've made in my life has been my choice alone, going to college being the only exception.

Returning to Port Angeles was my choice, for example. My mother claims that—as her only progeny—I am her life, so I couldn't stay far away for longer than what was necessary, for her sake. When my plane touched down, Esme was there to hug, kiss and pamper me as if I was a five-year-old boy coming home from my first day of kindergarten. Only now, I was coming home from college.

And now I stand on the corner of Broad and 2nd, my fingers itching to break my collar's chokehold, the sun in my eyes, my mouth dry, my nerves shot. In my hand I hold a small piece of paper with directions scribbled on it, and one pink, thornless rose.

The crosswalk signal shifts to green, and then I'm walking again.

I double-check my directions to make sure I'm still on the right path, despite knowing that I am. Nothing else has been on my mind in days, and I can't pretend this was a spontaneous decision.

It's only been a couple weeks since I've moved to Port Angeles, but Jazz and I haven't talked about it. I know I must have scared her silly. What woman, in her right mind, would dare meet up with a foreign man she's met online? She has a good head on her shoulders if she fears meeting up with someone like me. If I am the type to shamelessly expose my penis online, what other nefarious things would I be capable of?

Of course, I know I have no ill intentions at heart. But she doesn't.

I have recently moved into my old bedroom in my parents' house, but only until I scrounge up enough money for my own place. They claim not to mind. My father gifted me his old silver Volvo, too—slightly dusty and worn, but it's in good shape.

The Volvo's left on the corner of 3rd and Broad, two blocks away from my destination where I've just arrived.

**WORLD CUP  
COFFEE & TEA**

As I stare at the sign for a moment, my collar tightens further and my throat feels like it's thickening with fear and nausea. My eyes flit across the street, noting the small, white apartment buildings located on the other side.

I look back down to my paper.

_2nd and Broad, two blocks SW from Space Needle – 400 Broad St.  
Across street from World Cup Coffee  
One set of noisy neighbors  
Movie night w/ Alice_

And that's all I know.

My legs won't let me shift a mere inch toward the apartments, so like a coward, I duck inside the small coffee shop to gather my wits.

The door chimes and everyone in the shop raises their head at my entry, and I minutely wonder if they can see my nervous sweating or my pulse that feels like it's thundering. I slide into the closest chair, laying the rose on the center of the table in front of me.

Jazz and I had talked briefly yesterday night. She told me that today was going to be a chick-flick marathon night for her and her best friend, Alice, so I know that she most likely is at home.

She doesn't know that I'm currently located just across the street from her.

God, I feel like such a creep.

I lay my forehead on the tabletop and try to regulate my breathing. My stomach twists as I remember how dismissive Jazz was about meeting me. She clearly did not want us to meet, so why did I come here? Why can't I get her out of my head? Why can't I take 'no' for an answer?

Why did I choose to drive two hours to see a girl who doesn't wish to see me?

I'm such a fool for going after this woman I do not know, but I just can't help myself. I _like_ Jazz. Day after day, for months, we'd bonded, but now it feels as if we've got to make it or break it. I don't want her to abandon me. I need to know why she's so reluctant.

Am I really so bad? Was I nothing more than just a pretty sight to her, some tool for her voyeur sexual gratification?

"Did you wanna order something, sweetie?" a woman asks. I lift my head from the table and glance up to see a heavyset woman with greying red hair and happy lines around her eyes. She works here, as I can see by her name tag. _Shelly_.

"Um, no." I clear my throat. "No thank you."

She smiles slightly and taps a finger against her lips in thought. "Gotta order something if you wanna stay. Dang kids used to come in all the time and loiter, so that's our new policy." She winks and drops her hand. "Want something small? I can getcha a cookie, if you'd like."

I nod mechanically. "Chocolate chip? And a cup of water, please."

"I'll be right back," she says, then scurries off.

A couple minutes later, before my mandatory cookie arrives, the entrance door chimes again. In rushes a dark-haired, short woman who could be no older than twenty, though her movements of skipping and flailing are almost child-like. She waves a handful of dollar bills at Shelly and they smile at each other.

"I was expecting you today," the older woman croons. "You two having another muffin-eating contest tonight?"

Another employee brings me my cookie and a tiny cup of water. I nod my thanks and take a sip.

"No," the short woman chirps, bouncing on her toes a bit. "We both got sick eating yours last time. I only eat Jazz's now."

I splutter and cough, causing water to spill out of my mouth and cup.

"Don't get too sure of that, Alice, dear. My muffin is the biggest, best-tasting one on the block. You'll come running back for more."

"Jazz's muffin is moister," she sang. "Spongy, almost. And having a too-big muffin is never a good thing, you of all people should know."

They chuckle.

I grab a few napkins from a nearby dispenser and clean up the water I spilled on the table. My eyes travel back up to the girl. She is Jazz's best friend, I know, standing no more than twenty feet from me. Alice orders 'the usual', then dawdles around near the front counter. I keep my head down and turned away from her.

Just a few short minutes later, Alice dances back outside, two cups of coffee in hand. She crosses the street without looking both ways, then runs up to the apartment on the very right of the complex.

Jazz's apartment.

She doesn't knock before entering. There's a glimpse of someone else inside the home, and then Alice disappears, and the door closes.

My guts twist again. Reluctantly, I eat the cookie, although it doesn't help calm my stomach.

Several minutes pass. I drink the last of my water, and then I'm sitting there, wringing my sweating palms together and trying to calm myself down again. I didn't think up a plan for this. I just... Fuck, I have no idea what I'm doing here. It feels like I _need_ to see her, but this is borderline crazy. Jazz has no idea that I could figure out where she lived. The pieces of information she'd given me, of how she lives across the street from this coffee shop... That's all it took for me to find her exact location. I don't even know her full name, but I know precisely where she lives.

Fuck. I'm definitely a creeper.

My shaky fingers eventually begin playing with the pink rose I brought to give her, and then I'm plucking its petals.

_She loves me, _I think sourly as I tug the petals out.

_She loves me not. _

_She loves me._

By the time I pull the last one, as predicted, _she loves me not._

I sigh. That didn't make me feel any better, but at least it helped to calm my heart rate down momentarily. It's now or never, I decide. I throw down a couple bills on the table, leaving them alongside my trash and the destroyed flower. Shelly gives me an odd look as I leave the shop in a rush. It must be done now, though, before I lose what little nerve I have.

I jog across the street toward her apartment. The blinds on Jazz's window are pulled shut, so they can't see me as I step before her front door. My brain tries to think up something to say to her, but everything I devise sounds slimy or stalker-ish. Fuck it, I'll just wing it. Hopefully I don't get the door slammed in my face, or worse, the police called on my stupid ass.

Despite knowing this will definitely turn out badly, I knock a few times with the back of my fist, each knock growing softer. My hand drops awkwardly, and my throat feels like it's choking up again.

I hope to God she doesn't have a hardcore, gangster boyfriend with her or some shit.

What the fuck am I doing here?

Before I can consider fleeing, the door creaks open and out pokes the dark-haired woman's head. Her eyes widen as she appraises my face and body, but then her face relaxes, and a small smile forms on her lips. She cracks the door open a bit more and leans her hip against it.

"Hi there," she practically purrs, running her fingertips along the neckline of her blouse.

I gulp, darting my wandering eyes up from her chest to her face. She's pretty, and she has nice boobies, but she isn't who I'm here for. "You must be Alice?" I prompt.

Her smile only widens. "Perhaps," she says almost teasingly. Alice lowers her hand and cups her arms in front of her, pushing out her cleavage. "What can I do for _you_?"

It takes a strong will to completely ignore her actions, but I persevere. "Is Jazz home?" I inquire, scarcely resisting the urge to peek over her shoulder. Or down her blouse.

Realization overwhelms her features. Her seductive smile turns humored at the mention of Jazz's name, then she's laughing. Hysterically.

"Oh, I'm sorry," she breathes. "Of course that's who you're here for. I didn't realize you were g..." She cuts herself off and exhales another laugh. "Oh, fuck, I'm so sorry," she says again, then turns around to call into the apartment. "Jazz! Tear yourself away from The Notebook for half a second, Ryan isn't all that hot. There's a hotter guy here for you."

Grinning, she tucks her chin into her neck cutely as Jazz approaches. "What did I tell you about keeping secret boy toys?" Alice scolds. "I never keep mine a secret from you."

"What the hell are you talking about?" a man laughs as he appears right beside her. "I don't keep secrets..."

His words die from his lips as soon as he looks directly at me.

The thing I notice about him first is that he has blonde hair like Jazz does—the same exact shade, a light golden blonde with slightly darker roots. He's trimly built and stands a full head above Alice. His facial features, however, are eerily similar to Jazz's: red, slightly pouty lips, a perfect nose and high cheekbones. My first assumption is that this man must be her twin brother.

Who she has never mentioned.

Huh.

"So are you going to introduce us?" Alice asks, looking up at the man.

He doesn't acknowledge her. Instead, he stares at me with wide eyes, as if I'm holding a gun to his head or some shit. The expression he's sporting is unfittingly terrified, and that unnerves me. I shift my weight awkwardly, not sure how to react to the plausibly crazy dude.

Alice stomps her little foot and huffs. "Fine, whatever. Hi, I'm Alice, but you already know that." She smiles at me in a polite way. "And you are?"

"Edward," the man answers for me with a rasp. I begin to open my mouth to ask how he, of all people, knows who I am—even Jazz's best friend doesn't know me—but I'm at a loss at what to say. He and I stare at each other, at an impasse.

After a couple seconds, I break the connection, instead watching Alice as she elbows Mr. Psycho in the ribs. "He can answer for himself, Jazz."

My eyes instantaneously snap back up to his. Jazz? Why in the world is she calling _him_ Jazz? I can see the similarities between the two, because this guy must be Jazz's brother or something like that, but there's no way...

Abruptly, something I hadn't considered finally registers in my brain. The man must see the drastic flip in my expression, because suddenly he's shoving Alice behind him.

"Get inside, Al," he whispers urgently.

"Jasper?"

"Get the fuck inside and stay," he commands, pushing her further away from me. With a squeak, she obeys, disappearing into the apartment again.

By the time he turns back around to face me, I'm stumbling backwards toward the road.

Every beautiful physical attribute I'd see in my online friend is echoed in this man's face. Their features are exactly the same—eyes, nose, lips, cheeks, jaw, hair, everything. The only difference is that this is not my friend; this is not the girl I'd bonded with over the months. This is not the girl for whom I'd exposed my body, my secrets, my heart. This is not _my _Jazz.

This Jazz is... a _man_.

_Jasper._

I can't feel the tightness of my throat or the nervous sweat on my palms anymore. My heart clenches and twists painfully inside my chest, already feeling the dreadful ache of loss like I'd felt with Bella.

He steps forward, his face looking just as torn as mine. He's fearful, I can tell, but I don't know why. A broken sob rises from my throat without warning as soon as he steps closer again.

"Edward," he pleads.

Before I realize it, I have stepped too far and am falling down onto the street. A car screeches to a halt beside me and blares its horn, but I can't react to it. My eyes are deadlocked onto Jasper's blue ones.

He's not even remotely feminine.

He isn't neatly groomed like a woman—I can see stubble on his jaw, and his hair is unkempt in the way that only men seem to have. He's wearing a tight black tee and low-slung jeans, with even a couple tattoos peeking out from beneath the fabric of his shirt. He's lean and sinewy, strongly built, and his posture practically _reeks_ of masculinity.

The girl I nearly fell for was deceiving me all along.

_She's not even a girl._

I turn away from his gaze, pick myself up and finally run like I should have done in the first place. He screams my name once as I begin to sprint, twice as I run around the corner of the block. Passersby are startled as I attempt to weave between their bodies.

My eyes cloud with tears I hadn't thought were possible. I had never cried for Bella, and I don't think I'd cry just for Jazz. But the complete shame and embarrassment I feel for being attracted to a _fraud_ overwhelms me. Another sob escapes, then another, until I'm resisting the urge to bawl.

I finally reach the Volvo and my fingers fumble with the keys to unlock it. I hear his footsteps behind me just a second before I hear his voice.

"Edward," he says.

Instantly, I flip around. He's come close enough so that my hand can fist in his shirt and yank him closer, twist him around and slam his back into the Volvo. My other fist rises automatically, preparing to beat the shit out of this fucker.

The only thing that stops me is the tears streaming down his face.

"You weren't supposed to meet me," Jasper wails. His hands lightly grab onto the one I'm pinning him with, but he doesn't attempt to pry it loose. "Why did you come here? You weren't supposed to find out that I... I'm a..."

"Are you even a man?" I sneer through tears of my own. "What the fuck are you? A tranny? A she-male?"

"No," he cries quietly. "I'm gay. Just gay."

My vision blurs with red fury. I slam his back into the Volvo again, needing to take my anger out on something, preferably him. He whimpers but does nothing to fight back.

"Gays don't pretend to be chicks to deceive straight men!" I holler at him. "I— _Fuck_, I thought I felt shit for you! What kind of sick fuck are you? Are you satisfied now?"

"No!" he screams back. He has the audacity to glare at me. "No! I just wanted to _talk_ to you. You were so attractive and nice, so amazing, I just wanted to talk... It wasn't supposed to go on for so long. We were never supposed to meet. I'm sorry I led you on, I just... couldn't..."

"So this is my fault?" I hiss incredulously.

"No!" he yells again. He hangs his head and lets out another sob. "Damn it, Edward, no. I'm the stupid asshole here who used you for selfish reasons. I'm so sorry I put you through this, I just didn't want to let you go. The only way you would talk to me is if I was a girl..."

I loosen my jaw, realizing I'd been tensing it. "That's not true," I say more quietly.

"Yes it is," he argues. "You didn't talk to any other men from that chatroom, did you? You didn't give them a second glance. They meant nothing. I only lied at first because you said you're only attracted to women, and I didn't want you to shrug me off. I had to lie or you wouldn't have given me the time of day. I never meant for this to turn so complex."

I grimace and lessen my hold on his shirt. "That makes it okay to lie? I thought you were a good person! Shit, I thought we..."

Sighing, I let go of his shirt and wipe at my eyes. The tears there just add on to my embarrassment.

"I'm sorry you had to see me like this," he whispers.

My eyes snap back to his. "Like what?" I question confusedly. "Like a man?"

He sighs and rubs over his chest where I'd gripped him. "No, I love the fact that I'm a man. I wouldn't want it any other way, truly," he says. "I'm just sorry you had to be disappointed because I _am_ a man. I just wish you didn't find out, I never meant to hurt you... I know you weren't expecting this."

"I wasn't expecting to find a man, no." A disbelieving laugh fights its way out of my throat. "Maybe a giant, beefy boyfriend to curb-stomp my ass or something, but I wasn't expecting... _you_."

The slightest trace of a smile flickers over his mouth. He wipes his tears away with the back of his hand.

Staring at him, face-to-face, I can tell that he is definitely the same person from the pictures he'd sent me. But I can also clearly see he's a male—he's not girly at all—so why couldn't I sense his masculinity through his photos? His hair seems a bit shorter, his eyes less soft, his jaw more sharp.

He must see the questions in my eyes, because he answers them for me. "Angles," he explains. "A hair straightener, tweezers, and... angles. That's all it took."

I expected as much. He'd put effort into his ruse. Not much effort, of course, but it was enough to fool me.

"I'm guessing you're not a waitress," I say with a flat laugh. My anger dwindles further as Jazz smiles a bit more.

"I am a waiter, though," he admits.

"And your name is Jasper?"

He nods solemnly. "Jasper Whitlock."

A deep breath whooshes out of me at his words. Somehow, the name solidifies the truth. The girl I'd flirted with online for so long is actually one _Mr. Jasper Whitlock_.

"You've seen my ass," I accuse.

My tone only makes him smile again. "Indeed I have," he chuckles. "You have a very nice ass. It's very... bubbly."

"And you've seen... my cock."

He nods again, his smile lessening. "Yes."

"I'm guessing it's good, too?"

Jasper raises one eyebrow at me. "Am I supposed to answer that as Jazz, or as a gay man?" he asks seriously. His eyes travel down my body, then pause once they reach the front of my jeans. "You know what I think about your cock," he says suggestively. His tongue flicks out to moisten his lips, then a small silver ball glides across them momentarily.

For the briefest second, the imagery of my cock and that tongue piercing together flashes through my mind. I swallow heavily and shove that stray thought away. Jasper catches me staring at his piercing, and as soon as I look him in the eyes again, he chuckles and winks at me.

My fingers run through my hair and I glare at him. "Don't do that," I snap. I shake my head and shoo him away from the Volvo. "Don't... hit on me, or whatever. I don't like men in that way."

"You liked Jazz in that way," he protests.

"I liked _the idea_ of Jazz," I correct. "You are not her."

His face crumples and he looks down to our feet. "I'm the same person," he mumbles. "The only difference is that I have a dick."

It does hurt to know that Jazz isn't who I thought she... _he_ was. But I'm not pissed at him just because he was born a male.

"It's not even that," I sigh. "It's the fact that you lied to me. I thought we connected on some level, but you deceived me, Jazz... I can't forgive you for that. I'm not interested in being used, so leave me out of your sick little games. Just... fuck off."

Jasper tenses his shoulders and nods, accepting everything I say. His eyes are red and rimming with tears that have yet to fall. "I'm sorry," he says, then bites his lower lip.

I turn away from him to unlock my car. Jasper watches me as I open the driver's side door. He shifts slightly, and I pause, sensing that he has something else on the tip of his tongue.

"For what it's worth, I think you're a wonderful man. Any woman would be so lucky to have you," he says sincerely. He takes a deep breath and steps back, discretely wiping at his brimming tears. "Have a great life, Edward."

This is my cue to sit my ass down in the car, drive off and brainwash myself so I forget this ever happened. But as I stand here, beside my car with Jasper just a few feet away, the horribly pained look in his eyes prevents me from moving. For a man with several tattoos and a tongue piercing, he sure is soft at heart.

The softy in myself caves at that. I can imagine Jasper feels like I did after Bella abandoned me—confused, injured, with a million 'what-ifs' running through his mind. I know that I'd never want to leave another person feeling like that. He deserves some piece of mind, even if he was the one who hurt me.

I close my car door without getting in and wave him closer. Jasper looks nervous and unsure, but trusts me enough to approach again.

There are a handful of really fucking stupid decisions we all make in life, and I think this is going to be one of mine. I cup his face between both of my hands and pull him closer, until we're as close as possible without our bodies touching.

For a moment, I don't think of him as just a man; I see Jasper as a person who cares for someone he cannot have. I understand that long-lasting pain, and in the spur of the moment, I decide to try my best to alleviate some of his pining. He is attracted to me, and although I cannot return those feelings, there _is _something I can leave him with. Impulsive as always, I wish to give him a small _something _to remember me by.

"I'm sorry I can't give you more than this," I murmur, licking my lips in preparation. My fingertips urge Jasper's head slightly closer to mine, but he freezes, suddenly realizing my intentions. His eyes widen. "Easy," I soothe, coaxing him even closer.

My heartbeat is quickly thudding in my chest as the tips of our noses brush. Jasper exhales softly and I breathe in his air, tasting the sweet mocha he must have drunk back at home. His body finally relaxes against me, and I take his response as permission to continue.

Cautiously, my lips brush his as softly as a feather. My fingers trace paths over his cheekbones before sliding down his neck, down to his shoulders and chest. The absence of breasts isn't unfavorable, only foreign to me—I've never been this close to a man, chest-to-chest like this. Jasper sighs and returns the kiss with more vigor just as I scale my fingers over his trim abdomen.

I rest my fingers on either side his hips and kiss him just as firmly. Jasper's lips are soft and warm, pliable and surprisingly not at all different from a woman's. The stubble on his jaw doesn't even make much of a difference. He slowly parts his lips and lets me in, and our tongues intermingle and flick against one another teasingly, his tongue ring occasionally making an appearance. Once he realizes I'm not running anywhere, Jasper fully puts himself into the kiss. His fingers slide up into my hair and tug, enticing a quiet grunt from the both of us.

My erection crashes the party. One moment I'm as flaccid as ever, the next I'm hard and throbbing and can feel Jasper's erection pressing into mine. He grinds his hips slowly against my cock, and a soft moan comes from the back of his throat as he rubs himself against me like a cat. Or like a horny dude.

With a gasp, I forcefully tear my lips apart from his. His closed eyes pop open in surprise. I stagger backwards until I reach the Volvo and frantically wipe at my mouth, just realizing_ I __made out with a man_.

I made out with _Jazz_... who has a penis. It's not the fact that I made out with him that's surprising, only the fact that I'm so turned on by it.

_I don't even like dick._

"What was that for?" he asks breathlessly.

I scrub a hand over my face and sigh. "I don't remember," I answer. The kiss was supposed to be small. It was supposed to be my goodbye to a tender-hearted, tattooed gay man who will never see me again. Jazz was my internet buddy for so long, it makes me feel as if I shouldn't just _disown_ him because he lied to me. A small, emotionless kiss was supposed to be my one and only farewell present to him.

It didn't work out as well as I had hoped.

Jasper adjusts himself through the front of his jeans. I can see the bulge of his erection through the denim, large and straining to be released from the fabric. He shifts his dick to a more comfortable angle and gives it a long downward stroke, causing my dick to twitch in jealousy at the sight. It wants to be stroked as well.

Jasper rubs his neck and looks at me questioningly. He licks his lips, and the pink glimpse of his tongue makes me twitch in my jeans again.

"So was that a 'the end', or a 'to be continued...'?" Jasper asks.

I really don't know how to answer him.


	3. Chapter 3

The drive home from Seattle is filled with regret. I finally loosen my collar and turn the radio up to an obnoxious volume, if only to help me forget what had just happened.

I cannot regret my decision to kiss Jasper, although that would probably be the normal thing to do. He had looked so downhearted, in need of reassurance... Despite my own feelings, I kissed him to make him feel better. To make him feel less rejected.

What I do regret is leaving him like I did, jumping in my car and speeding off without so much as a 'goodbye'. My stupid brain made me act on impulse again, and I probably ruined what I had been trying to accomplish. Certainly our kiss and the affects thereafter hadn't made him feel better at all.

It wasn't intended to make myself feel worse, either, but it did.

The trip home is long and tiring. I just want the day to be over already. When I arrive home at sunset, my father is already off of work, his car pulled up into the garage, and I can see the kitchen light on as Esme prepares dinner.

As soon as I enter the house, my mother is there waiting for me with a grin that could light up the town. "How did your date go?" she asks, quick to the point.

I shift past her, forcing my expression to seem less _emo_ or whatever, but I obviously fail. Her smile dims as I pass by. "It wasn't a date," I say gruffly.

My father is in the kitchen as I enter it, shoveling a bowl of baked macaroni into his mouth. Taking in my sullen expression, he greets me with a warm, "Beer is in the fridge."

I don't respond right away. I turn the sink faucet on and splash some water over my face, trying in vain to clear my muddled head.

"You're going to get your shirt all wet," Esme says. As soon as I turn the faucet off, she goes back to questioning me. "How did your... _meeting_ go, then? Did she like you? Did you like her? How was Seattle? Did you have a good time?"

"It was horrible," I groan.

"Vodka's in the cupboard," Carlisle pipes up.

My mother tuts disapprovingly at him, then places her hand on my back reassuringly. "Aw, I'm sorry, sweetheart. You're better than her, Edward, and any good girl that would pass you up is a fool. That Jazz girl must have been no good anyway."

"_That Jazz girl_ was a man," I blurt before my mind can catch up with my mouth. Esme goes rigid at my side just as Carlisle begins choking on his mouthful of macaroni.

I pull out of my mother's reach and retrieve the vodka. I could really use a fucking drink today.

"A man?" Esme asks, startled. "A date with... a..."

"It's just a phase, I'm sure," my father whispers. "Son," he says louder, "how long as this sort of thing been going on?"

It's apparent that my parents suddenly think I'm gay. Or bi. Or... experimenting. So quick to jump to conclusions, it's really kind of insulting.

"Have you been doing _the drugs_?" Esme squeaks. "Dating a man? What has gotten into you?"

I'm really caught in a bad mood, and her close-minded behavior pisses me off further. "A big, black penis," I deadpan. Her eyes widen even more and her mouth gapes open. "I'm kidding," I reluctantly add.

She sighs and presses a hand over her heart. "Oh my..."

Is she that fucking relieved? My face transforms into a grimace and I turn away from them to go upstairs, vodka bottle in hand. They let me go without another word spoken to me, although the hushed murmurs amongst themselves are well within hearing distance.

Once upstairs, I go into my room and shut the door behind me. I sprawl out on my bed and chug down a couple shots worth of vodka. It really fucking sucks because it tastes so bad, it fucking burns, and I hadn't thought to bring another drink to chase it down with. When my limbs start tingling I set the bottle aside, knowing the rest of the liquor will catch up with me shortly.

A while later, my father enters my room, carrying a plate of food for me.

"I'm not hungry," I mutter.

"Alright." He shifts his weight uncomfortably. "Um, you must know, we would support you if you chose to... live _differently_."

"Good to know."

"You just shocked your mother," he explains. "She's not _against_ homosexuals, of course, you know how supportive she is of equal rights and 'being yourself' and all that. She was just caught off-guard... It's perfectly normal to feel a little confused about your sexua—"

"Okay."

"Even your uncle Alec had a bit of a _party-goer_ phase in college—"

"Okay."

"You can always come to me if you have any quest—"

"Can I please just fucking be alone?" I ask.

He finally gets the point and leaves. Thank fuck.

I lay on my side and curl up, focusing on the wonderful feeling of disorientation the alcohol provides, the tingles in my skin, the added warmth, the churning of my stomach. But it doesn't help me forget.

It's overwhelming, still so fucking hard for me to comprehend that Jazz is actually a man. A manly man, with ink and piercings and a penis and a fucking _girl_ as his best friend. A man that I kissed, and that I liked kissing. My lips touching his lips and my cock touching his cock made me horny.

I don't know what to think of that.

I'm not even bisexual. I've seen all sorts of men in porn—thin, fat, hairy, hairless, scrawny, muscular, hung like a horse... None of those men turned me on. Seeing a cock thrusting in and out of a pussy turns me on, but the cock itself? I think not.

But... _Jasper._ Yes, I'm pissed that he's a liar, but I don't think I could hate him. I can't explain anything, but just the thought of him still makes my stomach turn all aflutter. And I know it's not just the alcohol.

I don't understand it.

* * *

Two weeks later, I stumble into Lauren Mallory at the local grocery. We had dated for a short while in high school, but we'd broken up after her Daddy caught me defiling her freshman mouth with my senior dick. She's over a head shorter than I am, blonde hair, all soft womanly curves and vanilla-scented. Four years later and she's still pretty.

Lauren gets behind me in the checkout line. She bites her lip and watches my hands as I place my items up on the conveyor belt, looking as if she remembers the way my long teenaged fingers used to feel against her body. I smile at her, and she at me, and we say hello and start chatting.

There's something obviously wrong with me when I leave the store without asking for her number. It crossed my mind, but I'm just... not interested. And I don't know why.

When I'm back at home, my first impulse is to go online. There have been a few times where I've wanted to speak to Jasper again—I wanna know why he lied, I want to apologize, and I want to bitch at him. There are nights where I want to knock his fucking teeth out... and then there are _those_ nights.

The nights where I lie awake at night, hard and pulsating and _so _aroused to the point of being purple. I don't touch myself, because when I do, I can't help but think of my would-be girl, Jazz, with her pretty eyes and lips and hair that I had fantasized over for so long. But she isn't _my_ girl, because she isn't _a_ girl.

Jazz's gender had little to do with our previous friendship, I've realized by now. The long conversations we'd had were not always sexual, but intellectual. The Jazz I spoke to was both smart and comedic, and to be truthful, it wasn't her appearance that attracted me to her at all.

I want to cry and punch myself in the dick for not being able to get over this shit. It's Bella all over again, but now it's ten times worse, because it's a _man_.

So I don't masturbate. I don't go online.

There's something strange building inside of me that yearns to do... something. Eventually, it gets to the point where I give in. I log into my instant messenger _just to check_. I've got to check, to see if he's still alive, but he's not online. I leave my laptop on and the volume all the way up so I can hear it chime if he logs in, but he doesn't log in all night.

The same thing happens for a week. Jasper doesn't come online. I think he's abandoned his old screen name, or he has blocked me from messaging him. Either way, it hurts, and I'm beginning to feel desperate again.

On the eighth night of waiting, my computer makes a sound—it's three o'clock in the morning when Jasper finally signs online.

I jump out of bed to see what he'll do. We haven't spoken in the three dreadful weeks since our confrontation in Seattle. A part of me wishes he would block me, so I will someday be able to forget that he exists, while another part wants him to message me. There are so many questions I want to ask but I don't know how to word any of them.

With perfect timing, a new message window pops up, startling me.

_I thought you would've blocked me by now,_ Jasper says.

I take a deep breath and try to think before replying. What do I want to say to him?

There is so much emotion and confusion in me lately that I don't know what I want anymore. Why do I still think of Jazz the same way as I did months ago? Why don't I hate him when I obviously should? I still get the feeling that I want to... _see_ him. I don't want to date him, of course, but knowing that Jasper is the person I had bonded so deeply with before... My feelings haven't changed all that much, knowing Jasper is still the funny, witty person I grew to adore.

I have no idea how he feels about me, but I figure asking is worth a shot.

_I kind of wanted to ask you again. Would you like to get a cup of coffee sometime?_

I send the message before I can think twice about it. Only after do I realize my wording made it sound like a date. Oh, shit.

It takes Jasper forever to respond. After several seconds too long, the chat program tells me that he's begun typing, but then he quickly deletes what he was going to say. He doesn't start typing again.

Beginning to panic, I add, _Alice can join us._

Fuck, that one probably sounded rude. I really suck at this, and not in the good way.

After a moment of sitting on the edge of my seat, Jasper replies with a simple, _Okay._

* * *

He doesn't want me driving the whole way to Seattle (a full two hours for a 'cup of coffee'), but with a bit of coercion, he allows me to drive as long as he pays for the gas. As I enter World Cup Coffee, Alice and Jasper are sitting at a booth against a wall. Their heads are close with his arm curling around her shoulders, and had I not known Jasper was gay, I would've thought they were a couple.

Both of their eyes light up as they see me.

"Hello, handsome," Alice coos at me.

Jasper just smiles shyly and nods his hello.

I shuffle awkwardly to their booth and sit down across from them. My clothes today are casual, just a band shirt and jeans, and it relieves me to see that Jasper's taste in clothing isn't all that different from mine.

Jasper silently reads from a small book held in his free hand. Alice sets one elbow on the table and opens her mouth to speak, and after a couple seconds, she closes it and hides her mouth against her fist. She and Jasper look at each other before he smiles and nudges her with his arm.

She turns back to me. "So, wait. Let me confirm this," she says, pointing at me with one manicured index finger. "You are straight."

I glance at Jasper again, but his gaze is already slanted downward. "Yes," I answer her.

"And Jasper claimed he was a girl online to get you to show him your penis."

I swallow, unsure why she's asking me this. Jasper doesn't look up from his book, but I can tell he's listening. "Yes," I reiterate. Alice's mouth pops open and she smacks Jasper's arm, causing him to cringe away from her. "It doesn't matter now," I sigh. "I don't care anymore."

Alice stares at me disbelievingly. "Wow," she says in awe, "you are really nice." She hops up and leans across the table, reaching out to playfully loop her fingers into my hair. "And you're pretty. Your hair is so soft, too, ohmygod."

"Thank you?" I ask, unsure and leaning away from the over-friendly girl.

The shopkeeper calls Alice's name at the perfect moment. She draws her hand back and slides out of the booth, winks at me, then heads up to the front counter to get their order.

Jasper chuckles at my expression.

I let out a breath I hadn't realized I was holding and give him a perturbed look. "She's, uh, quite friendly..."

He nods. "She probably thinks you're hot," he whispers, leaning forward conspiratorially. "More so now that you've confirmed being straight."

I raise an eyebrow at him, but Alice comes back before I can say anything. She sits down beside him and he wraps his arm around her shoulders again. The two are very close, as I can see, although it's fairly rare for a man to be the best of friends with a woman.

"How did you two become friends?" I inquire.

Alice takes a sip of Jasper's drink and hands it to him. He smiles widely at her and sets his book closed on the tabletop. "We dated in high school," she explains. "Six months of our junior year. Jasper... Well, he was probably the best boyfriend I have ever had."

That surprises me. I don't know why, but I had assumed Jasper didn't date girls at all. "Why did you two break up?" I ask curiously.

Alice laughs at my question, while Jasper only glares at her.

"He couldn't keep it up on prom night," she answers.

"Alice!" he barks. I raise both eyebrows at him this time and he smacks his forehead. "_Shit_," he curses to himself, his face turning red. "We planned on losing our virginity together when we were sixteen. Only, I wasn't able to, uh... stay aroused."

My eyes widen and my own dick cries, feeling his embarrassment vicariously. "Oh, Jesus," I gasp in horror.

Alice bobs her head and starts unwrapping the muffin she'd bought. "I felt so bad, thinking it was my fault. He couldn't even stay up with..." She imitates giving a lascivious blowjob to the air and shrugs. "But then we talked about it and figured out he was as queer as a three dollar bill, so. Neither one of us were at fault."

Jasper takes the lid off of his drink—a mocha, probably—and takes a sip. "Mhmm," he agrees noncommittally.

"Do you ever wish you were normal?" I ask him.

The immediate expression he gets makes me regret my words. "_Normal?_" he repeats, looking offended. "For me, being gay _is_ normal. I don't feel badly having different preferences."

I shrink back, afraid that I'd pissed him off. He grabs a straw that Alice had brought to the table and shoves it into his open coffee cup.

Stupidly, I attempt to twist our conversation into a joke. "Let me guess, you took one look at a vagina and ran screaming?"

His eyebrows crease, making him look even angrier. "Not quite," he mutters. "It's not any fear that makes me _abnormal_."

Oh, fuck, he _is_ pissed off. Even Alice's face tightens as her fingers pick away at her food.

"I'm sorry!" I blurt. "It wasn't my intention to offend you, Jasper. I'm obviously not good at talking to gay men. Shit, I've never even _met_ a truly gay man, until... you."

"Hmm," he hums. "We are a rare breed."

I don't know how to reply to that, so we fall silent.

Jasper lazily stirs his mocha around with one of those little coffee straws. Alice removes the nuts from her banana nut muffin, while both of them purposefully keep avoiding my gaze. Our conversation turns stiff thanks to my baseless snub, and I can't think of any way to change the subject. It feels like I've dug myself a hole I can't get out of.

Jasper thankfully lightens the mood by speaking first. "I would still prefer if Alice was an Alfred," he chuckles.

"Alphonse," she corrects, flicking a nut in his direction and smirking. "Alphonse is so much more sophisticated."

I can't stop myself from smiling at her.

"Alphonse, then," he agrees, pulling her closer. She lays her head on his chest and happily snuggles up to his side. "I thought I was attracted to her, back in high school," he explains to me, trying to further prove his point. "But attraction is... circumstantial. Despite how much I love her, I can't be with her in _that_ way. Nothing will ever change that, not even love or friendship."

Alice turns her nose into his chest and wraps her arm around his waist, as if in an attempt to get closer to him. I can see in her expression a hint of the girl he'd dumped back in high school; the girl he had dumped because he was gay.

"I still love you," she laughs quietly against his chest.

Jasper chuckles and ducks his head down to kiss her hair. He murmurs something to her that I can't hear, and in response, her eyes turn wistful. She closes them and squeezes herself ever closer to his torso, as if he'd disappear from her side at any waking moment.

He rubs her back soothingly while looking up at me. "I wish I could be with her like a man _should_ be with a woman, but I can't. I've tried it. I'm just... not attracted to women."

I nod, looking out the window of the coffee shop to avoid the seriousness of his expression. My heart understands his words fully—liking someone so much, so completely, only to be unable to express those feelings because they are the wrong gender.

In an alternate universe, I could have loved Jasper, if only _he_ was a _she_.

But he is a man, and so am I.

"I know exactly what you mean," I say.

Another moment of silence passes between the three of us. Alice eats her muffin while continuing to lie against Jasper. I successfully change the subject of conversation to music and video games, something I know the both of us men could partially agree upon. As we talk, Alice takes small sips of his warm drink until she's looking tired, tired, tired... and then she's sleeping.

Jasper plays with her hair a bit, but she doesn't respond, other than breathing loudly with her face mushed against his belly. I can see that he cares for her strongly, albeit in a purely platonic sense. It's kind of adorable.

"We stayed up late last night," Jasper explains softly. "I'm sorry she fell asleep."

I shake my head. Her falling asleep, let alone her presence, means little to me. I came here for Jasper and Jasper only.

"I'm not here for Alice," I assure him.

Jasper gazes down at his best friend, petting her hair gently. "I thought you might've been here only to see her, because..." He laughs weakly and takes a long, slow drink of his mocha, blatantly stalling. "She's a cute, charming young woman, and I'm... I mean, what are the odds you'd want to be _my_ friend, right?"

I don't know how to answer that without exposing how fucking clueless I've been about my own emotions. Is it bizarre for me to long for friendship in a person who had betrayed me so completely? I'm no longer angry about his actions. I've forgiven him. Knowing my Jazz is not who I thought 'she' was still stings like an old burn wound, but I don't think I could forever resent him for lying. He had his reasons for deceiving me.

Friends... We could try being 'friends', without the flirting or kissing or cock-grinding. I want to understand why I feel this way, why I can't shake my old feelings off... I'm like a little child trying to ride a bicycle for the first time—I don't know what the fuck I'm doing, I'm scared and likely going to end up injured. But it's impossible to resist the temptation to just _try_.

"That's what I want to figure out," I finally reply. "I want to... try."

"To be friends?" he asks, looking unsure. He sighs quietly and tucks a bit of his hair behind his right ear, exposing a small jeweled stud and a helix piercing through the cartilage. It makes me wonder what other piercings he has. "I know I must have hurt you deeply, Edward. I can't take back my actions. You have no reason or obligation to forgive me."

"It doesn't matter," I urge. "I don't fucking care that you're a man. You're still the person I talked to for months. I don't know what I want from you, but I don't want to abandon what we had..." My jaw tightens and I run my hand through my hair exasperatedly. I'm fucking rambling again, probably sounding like I want his cock in my ass. Which I don't. Really.

"I'm being stupid," I mutter.

Jasper looks down into his cup, swirling the remainder of the dark liquid there with his coffee straw. "I don't think so."

His foot shifts forward beneath the table, resting the side of his leg against my own. It seems to be an accident by the way Jasper's eyes comically widen. I can feel the warmth and firmness of his calf muscle against mine, and had it been another man, I know I would have abruptly pulled my leg away from his. But the feel of his body touching mine, even in such a small way, makes me remember our odd kiss from several weeks ago, the feel of his chest against mine, his lips, his hands, his cock... his cock...

"You're honestly not like I thought you would be, in person," Jasper says.

My face warms up as I snap out of my disturbing thoughts. By the way Jasper looks at my cheeks, I'm positive I'm blushing like a Catholic schoolgirl in a porn shop.

"I could say the same for you," I counter. Then I realize how ridiculously obvious my statement is, causing Jasper to roll his eyes. We both chuckle and I add, "No, not just the physical parts. You always seemed so brazen online, but in real life, you seem... bashful, almost." Jasper ducks his head coyly and I smile at him. "It's rather cute."

He puffs out a small laugh. "When is the last time you called a man like me 'cute'?"

My smile fades as I consider his words. I'm fairly certain I've never called a grown man 'cute' in my entire life, until now. I don't know why that is.

It must be because I refuse to see him as _just_ a man, I decide. Jasper is still 'Jazz', beneath the tattoos and piercings and masculinity. The obnoxious fluttering butterflies in my stomach are enough to attest to that.

I set my hands atop the table and pick at my fingernails, trying to figure how to word my thoughts. "I'm trying not to think of you as only a man," I tell him slowly. "You are... more than that."

Jasper stares at me for a brief moment, his soft blue eyes flickering back and forth between mine, as if he were trying to read my thoughts. He then stretches back against the booth seat and laughs quietly. "You want to be _my_ friend?" he prods.

My smile is hesitant. "There's no harm in trying, right?"

He purses his lips, looking thoughtful. My calf muscle brushes against his and reminds us that we are still so close, touching one another beneath the table. He swallows nervously in the same second I do.

"Alright," he eventually acquiesces. "Friends."

I can feel the wound-up strings of my heart loosen at his words. I'm soothed at the knowledge that Jazz and I will have a chance to truly bond, once and for all, as friends. What I don't understand is why it is such an extreme relief—but I've surely done enough of questioning myself. It would be better to follow my instincts.

Alice doesn't awaken until it's time for us to leave, but as she lay against his chest, I could have sworn I saw her smiling.


	4. Chapter 4

"Edward, your aim is fucking dreadful."

"I'd like to see you get this monster into that small of a hole."

"Go slower, dude, don't slam it in! And you have to _cup_ the balls, like this—"

"I _know_ what I'm doing, Jazz." Leaning into his ear, I whisper, "And if I can't get it in, you're giving me my fucking money back."

Jasper laughs heartily and rips the giant basketball from my grip. He aims for the white basket on the other side of the wall—thirty points if he can get it in. Thirty points equals winning a gigantic flaming monkey _thing_ for Alice, which Jasper had stupidly promised to win for her. Of course, with our luck, the game is bona fide rigged.

He shoots the ball and it lands right in the center of the tiny basket, only to bounce right back out. We exchange knowing glances before he calmly shrugs and wanders away, leaving this crap behind him. Twenty dollars down into one game and Jasper finally calls it quits. I tag along behind him like a good boy, but not before leaving the scam artist with a hateful glare.

Alice is off somewhere in the carnival with her latest 'boy toy' Riley, some skinny kid that could barely be over eighteen. I think her ditching us was planned from the beginning, though—she continually leaves Jasper and me alone at inopportune moments. Since the three of us have begun hanging out, the little twerp has grown on me a bit, but she's weird as fuck and obviously not as sneaky as she thinks she is.

Jasper leads me to another amusement, one of those things where you swing the hammer onto the pad and try to ring the bell. Easy enough. I decide to take a go at it and step up to the platform.

This one is _definitely_ rigged. I swing the hammer down as hard as I can, but the little weight only flies up halfway to the bell before falling down again.

Jasper laughs his ass off behind me. The carny gives me a rueful smile and a blue penguin keychain as a prize.

"You're not very strong," Jasper notices as I return to his side with my tail in between my legs. I scowl, throwing the penguin at his face. He catches it before it hits him.

"This whole place is fucking rigged," I declare. "You try it, if you think you're so great."

Jasper glances at the _Hi-Striker_ game and laughs again. "No way, man. I don't want to embarrass myself."

"You fucking suck, dude."

"You know I do." He smiles and moves his mouth in a peculiar way, playing with his tongue ring, rolling it along his teeth.

I hesitate for a moment as Jasper turns around again. He's kind of unpredictable—one second he'll be all shy smiles and averted glances, other times he's practically telling me he sucks cock. It isn't like I don't know he does, but still, the words coming from a man's mouth are enough to momentarily stun me. This entire 'having a gay friend' thing is new to me.

I know it's just society's influence, but the thought of a dude sucking another dude's dick seems kind of... odd? I fully understand how a man could be attracted to another man, and I'm open-minded enough to accept Jasper for what he is. But there's still a small part of me that questions the subject I know so little about.

Of course, my mouth stays sealed. He doesn't talk about his love life and I don't ask.

Jasper is not at all like what I had expected, and not just in the physical sense. He's coy, but not skittish. Obvious, but not flamboyant. Beneath the masculine shoulders and stubble there's still that witty, dirty-minded joker—I suppose that's why I'm here. His personality type is just like any other close friend I've had.

But there have been a few signs that everything is not quite hunky-dory between us. Lingering eyes and stagnant silences make me question my reasons for being here—is our friendship normal? Am I too blind, too forgiving? I think my irrational heart had forgiven him on the day we first met. And by the occasional odd expression on his face, I'm fairly certain he is still attracted to me, in some way.

It's as simple as that, and yet... it isn't.

"We should get some cotton candy," Jasper muses. I agree and stop in front of a small cotton candy vendor. I purchase a bag of the fluffy stuff for him, and he begins tearing into it as we try to locate an outside table to rest at.

"Jasper Whitlock?" an unfamiliar man asks us as we pass by. Jasper seems surprised to see the man—a friend of his?—and promptly forgets about the cotton candy and future table.

"Peter? Hey, man." They both smile and give each other a quick man-hug, but Jasper seems hesitant. His eyes drift over to an affectionate woman latched on Peter's arm. "Long time, no see."

"Life's been keeping me busy," Peter laughs. He gestures to the woman at his side. "This is Charlotte, my fiancée. Charlotte, this is Jasper, an old friend."

"And this is Edward," Jasper says, pointing at me with his thumb. "Fiancée?" he repeats questioningly, raising his brow at the pair. "I'm... surprised, frankly. Wow, congratulations guys."

Peter pulls Charlotte into his side and grins like a buffoon. "Thank you. We're gonna go get some grub, but it was nice seeing you." He looks down to his fiancée and releases her with a light smack of her butt. "You can go get in line, Char. I'll be right there."

Charlotte obliges and leaves. Jasper backs away from Peter and bumps into me a little. He gives me an apologetic glance, but his eyes seem nervous, his body too jittery. Why is he so anxious around this guy?

Turning back to us, Peter pulls a small, white business card out of his wallet and hands it to Jasper. "Here's my number. Call me if you ever want to, uh, _catch up_." A small smile flits over his face and he winks. "I miss you, Jazz."

Jasper politely takes the card and thanks him. Peter's hand rests over Jasper's for several beats too long before Jasper drops his hand. Peter briefly eyes over Jasper's body, and I abruptly realize that Peter must be an ex of his—or at the very least, a past one-night stand. His eyes seem too lustful to be otherwise, his touches too familiar.

Jazz doesn't seem all that interested.

Peter tilts himself closely to Jasper and bravely murmurs, "My ass misses that fuckhot cock of yours."

Jasper tenses and backs up into me again. It's obvious, even from my perspective, that Jasper doesn't want Peter at all—but he's far too polite to make that obvious.

Jasper stutters, "I—I, um, I'm sorry, but—"

"Are you not single?" Peter interrupts blankly.

Jasper looks over his shoulder at me, giving me a panicked expression. Peter obviously just doesn't get it.

Leave it to me to take the bull by the horns.

"No," I answer for him, "he's not." My arm wraps around Jasper's waist and I pull him against me. I grab the business card from his hand and crumple it, just for show, and throw it at Peter's face. My aim is right on the fucking dot, hitting him square between the eyes. "Get back to your _fiancée_, Petey."

Jasper shrinks further against me, pressing his ass against my hip. My hand presses against his warm stomach and, in turn, a small piece of metal located just above where his bellybutton would be. Hello, piercing number four.

"Your boyfriend is an asshole," Peter snarls at Jasper. With a glare at me, he turns towards where his to-be-wife had headed and stomps off, fuming.

Once Peter disappears from sight, Jasper slowly lets out the air from his lungs and relaxes. I loosen my grip, then quietly ask, "You okay?"

He nods and steps away from me. His fingers grab hold of my wrist and he pulls me forward a little, toward where the tables would be. "Let's go sit down."

I let him lead me away. There's a small section of picnic tables outside where several families are seated. Jasper hands me the bag of cotton candy he'd been holding and sits down at one, cupping his face in his hands.

I take a seat beside him and set the bag on the table. He breathes slowly into his hands for a minute or so, then focuses back on me from the corner of his eye. I look away from his glance and study the folks around us, until I see Charlotte again, and Peter's steady, angry gaze several tables diagonal from us.

"Evil bastard, stage left," I mutter. "Why were you so jumpy around that guy?"

Jasper drops his hands, sighs, and turns to face me. "Peter was a mistake," he explains, looking miffed. "I knew he'd try to hook up again. I _knew_ it. Thank you for saving my ass."

I look back to where Peter was sitting—only now, he's canoodling with Charlotte. He hugs and kisses her like a sweet boyfriend should, acting as if he wasn't the type to hit on gay men while engaged to another.

"That's pitiful," Jasper sneers.

"What?"

He gestures to the couple. "Last I checked, Peter was gayer than gay."

I look back at them—they seem pretty into their mouth-fucking—and re-examine Charlotte's boobs. Not too perky. Yup, that's a woman.

"Are you sure?" I ask. "Because his fiancée is very much a chick."

"He loved my cock more than a fat kid loves chocolate cake," Jasper says. I cringe at his bluntness, causing him to smile apologetically. "He denied liking women before."

That seems odd. Why in the world would a gay man be with a woman, unless he loved her?

"Maybe he loves her," I speculate. "Maybe her gender doesn't matter to him?"

Jasper shakes his head slowly. "If love was strong enough to overrule gender preferences, Alice would be one Mrs. Jasper Whitlock by now." It takes me a moment to realize how powerful that statement is. Jasper swallows heavily and rubs at his neck. It seems to be a sore subject for him. "I doubt it," he adds.

"So you think he's pretending to love Charlotte?"

He shrugs. "Maybe not pretending the love, but the attraction? Perhaps."

It would be pathetic to live a fake life like that. Did Peter plan to marry a woman and get male ass on the side? They seem to be a happy couple, but then again, I'm not so great at debunking illusions.

Peter's gaze returns to us, as if he knows we're talking about him. He glares again. I look back to Jasper to find that he's staring at my face with rapt interest.

"Is he still looking at us?" he asks.

"Yeah."

Jasper fidgets nervously. "Do something couple-y," he suggests. "Like, just cuddle with me or something. Please? I don't want him to come over here again."

Peter is definitely staring at us, examining our behavior like a hawk. Shit.

"Okay," I resign. I pull one leg over the bench seat so I'm straddling it and scoot closer to Jasper. My arms tentatively curl around his trim waist, feeling his stomach tense and release beneath my hands. I rest my chin on his shoulder and try to make this_ seem _realistic—I'm not a good actor though. Jasper chuckles as I breathe onto his neck.

It's amazing what lengths I'll go to for this fucker. God, he has me trained.

"Is this alright?" I ask. He hums his assent and lays his arms over top of mine. From here I can see a small freckle on his neck, his two right earrings in detail and and smell his woodsy-scented cologne. Old Spice?

"Feed me cotton candy, boyfriend," Jasper demands. I snort at him but do what he says, opening the bag and pulling out a small piece. I raise it up to his mouth and he eats it from my fingers, shaking with withheld laughter. I playfully pinch his stomach.

It is unusual and definitely awkward, being this near him. He's the only man I've ever been this close to physically, other than quick man-hugs between friends and family. Everyone I've held this way has been a woman, a girlfriend... Why Jasper is the sole exception, I don't know. I'm used to soft skin and petite bodies, not calloused hands and lanky frames.

He watches me with softened eyes. I feed him another piece of fluff, but this time his lips brush my fingers. I scowl at him and he chuckles again, his body vibrating us both with the action.

This is so fucking gay, but for some reason, it's enjoyable.

Peter's head is still turned in this direction. I fuck with him a little and play with the edge of Jasper's pants, right above his ass cheeks. Jasper squirms indignantly. I press my mouth against his shoulder so he can't see how widely I'm grinning at his reaction. He reaches around himself and forcefully grabs my hand, situating it back around his waist and twining his fingers with mine.

I see movement in my peripheral vision—Peter stands up and says something to his fiancée, then leaves their table and begins heading in our direction.

"I think he's coming over here," I whisper.

Jasper whips his head around for a second to look. "Shit." I can see the gears turning in his head as he tries to think of something to do now. He pulls back a couple inches to look at me in the eyes—then at my lips.

"Kiss me," he says.

My reflex reaction is instantaneous. I try to pull back, but his grip on my arm holds me wrapped around him. "Fuck the homophobic bullshit, just think of me as a woman," he hisses. On a softer note, he begs, "_Please_, Edward."

Peter's no less than ten feet from us.

Nine feet.

Eight.

Fucking..._ fuck!_

"I hate you," I whine.

But I end up kissing him._ Again._

It's not hot, risque or passionate, and it doesn't turn me on. Our noses bump and our lips are dry, but it's okay, because it's fake. It doesn't mean anything.

Jasper tastes like bubblegum because of the cotton candy. Our lips move slowly together, familiarizing, remembering, and the tip of his tongue sneaks into my mouth to taste me back—I don't remember what I must taste like, and that makes me self-conscious. His tongue flicks lazily against mine and he smiles, pressing himself closer to me. Shit, he _likes_ this?

"I hate you so goddamn much," I mumble.

Jasper's eyes follow Peter as he silently walks past us. As soon as it's safe, Jasper pulls back and smiles, licking his lips. "Mm, that was nice. You should pretend to be gay with me more often."

I roll my eyes and try to shift away from him, forcing myself to not take his words seriously. "You should pretend to be a chick more often," I snark back.

He pats my hand and lets me go. "I've tried that already," he laughs.

* * *

Jasper loves rainstorms.

It's odd to see him like this, childishly stomping in puddles and getting his hair soaked in the downpour. His personality switches when it rains—he's like a kid again. It's bizarre.

He drove to my house for the first time today, but we hadn't even made it inside before he became distracted with the thick rain droplets that fell down around us. He pulled me out from beneath the porch awning and into the front yard.

"It's raining buckets," he reasoned, as if it wasn't obvious enough.

He now lies across the hood of my car, catching the water in his mouth while I look like a dumbass and watch him. His sense of humor and propriety are just a wee bit skewed from the norm—I find that I can relate to that. I've always thought that I felt like a stranger to others, in ways that I couldn't quite put my finger on.

It's a hassle to meet one another, living two hours apart, but I don't bitch and moan about it. We don't really talk online anymore because it reminds me of our past, the parts that I'm trying to forget about. Jasper does indeed have a cellphone (he'd lied about it before, the bastard), but we don't talk on that much, either. It's easier talking in person.

It's mostly just the weekends when we've met up to 'chill'. One weekend had been to play through a new video game together, another to visit the carnival, and apparently now, another to stomp in puddles and act like children.

Half an hour later, we come inside the house, soaking wet and freezing our balls off. Literally. My balls are kind of numb.

Esme and Carlisle are perched at the doorway when we come in. I know my mom has probably been spying on us through a window, prejudging him like she always does with my friends. After everyone is introduced, she and my father stare at him with inquisitive eyes. They probably think I'm fucking him—or he's fucking me—since I hadn't yet corrected them about the whole 'my son takes it up the ass' idea. Yeah, I probably should've cleared that up.

Esme makes some comment about us getting her carpets wet but I ignore her, grabbing Jasper's hand and leading him up the staircase. My parents crane their heads to continue staring, not only at him, but at our joined hands.

I drag him into my bedroom and shut the door behind us so _certain_ _nosy people_ can fuck off. We really are soaked, so I tell him to take his sneakers and jeans off so he stops drenching my room in rain water. I give him a towel, plus a pair of shorts and a t-shirt for him to change into, then head into my bathroom to change.

I forgot to grab a pair of dry boxers to put on beneath the shorts. It doesn't really matter though, I'm used to going commando and letting the boys hang loose. I pull on the shirt and shorts, dry my hair a bit, and head back out into my room.

Of course, my bad luck never fails me. Jasper isn't quite finished getting dressed—in fact, he isn't dressed at all. He's shirtless, pants-less, underwear-less and in the process of putting his foot through the leg hole of the shorts, half bent-over with the bare, white globes of his ass mooning me.

Jasper pauses for a brief second once he realizes I'm standing behind him. He pulls the gym shorts up the rest of the way and turns around.

"Sorry," he says, "I didn't see you there."

Fuck.

Abs. Wet abs. Wet pectorals. Wet nipples. Navel piercing. Semi-boner.

I promptly step right back into the bathroom and close the door.

Jasper's going commando, in _my_ bedroom, sporting a semi-erection. Or I think it was—he can't be _that_ hung. That was totally a semi.

And now I'm thinking about his cock again. Fuck. Shit. Balls.

Jasper's balls.

Shit.

I spend a couple minutes in the bathroom trying to get those graphic mental images out of my head. I pretend to towel-dry my hair some more until my shock settles down to an appropriate level. By the time I come out, Jasper's lying across my bed with his hair messy but mostly dry, looking at an old _Playboy_ magazine that I used to jack off to in high school.

"Do my moobs scare you that badly?" he asks, turning the page.

"What?" I blurt. My brain catches up one second later. "Oh, uhh, no. I'm good. What are you looking at?"

"A horror film's screen caps," he laughs. Jasper flips the nudey mag around to show me a redhead school teacher going spread-eagle in front of the camera, then throws it aside onto the floor. He pats the other side of my bed welcomingly.

He's still shirtless. It isn't as shocking the second time around, but it's still distracting to the extreme. His body is lean, not too muscular but not at all scrawny, and his navel piercing is a small, silver bar that stands out against his skin.

I crawl onto my bed beside him and copy his posture, lying back onto my pillows.

"I thought only girls had navel piercings," I tell him. "How many piercings do you have?"

"Five," he answers. He trails a hand down his stomach to play with the metal there. "Two in my right ear, one in my left, my tongue, and my bellybutton. I'm far too chicken to pierce anything _too_ extreme." He gestures to his crotch. "I used to have an eyebrow piercing, but that's a long story..."

"When I was twelve, my friend tried to pierce my right ear with a stapler," I reminisce with a grimace. "Worst day ever. I still have the scar."

He smiles. "That's cute. You know piercing just your right ear means you're gay, right?"

I close my eyes and look away from him, tilting my face up to the ceiling. "You caught me," I joke. "I'm _so _gay."

The bed dips with pressure as Jasper turns himself over to face me. He doesn't say anything at first, so after a minute, I peek my eyes open to look at him. He's staring at me with that soft expression again. I don't know what it means.

"You tease me," he laughs weakly.

Of course, with the small bit of sense I have, I understand that Jasper likely cares for me, as more than just a friend. How could he not if he'd been attracted to me before? The only thing that changed in this relationship was that I stopped sexually objectifying _him_, thinking of him as a possible future-conquest.

But in his eyes, I haven't changed. I'm still sexually appealing in his mind.

Am I really teasing him?

I can't even recall how we ended up this way. What had fueled me to stay his friend? Of course a normal man wouldn't do such a thing—finding out Jazz's interpretation of 'GIRL' meant a 'Guy In Real Life' would've resulted in Jasper losing a few teeth, in any other scenario. But with me, I'm too much of a fucking pussy to hurt anybody. Even with something as mind-blowing as Jazz lying about his gender couldn't make me hurt him.

So now I'm friends with a gay man that, in all likelihood, wants to shove his cock up my virgin ass.

And then I'm thinking about his dick again. I do realize he's seen my dick a bajillion times via webcam, but I've never seen his. That isn't fair.

"You've never been on a webcam," I point out.

Jasper chuckles softly. He rolls away from me to lie on his back, resting one hand on his stomach with his face tilted towards me. "Should I try it? I'm an easily embarrassed fellow, you know."

A small smile creeps over my mouth. Embarrassment is something I know all too well. "I'm shy, too, but you've seen me on camera hundreds of times."

"Stop _exaggerating_," he groans. "I've seen you about twenty, maybe thirty. And you were jacking it only half of those times."

"Shh," I hush him. "Don't knock it 'til you try it."

He sits up suddenly. I try to ignore the way his slight abs bunch together, but fail, obviously, since then I'm left thinking about his muscles and how his look in comparison to mine.

"You think I should jack off in front of hundreds of people?"

It's an odd question, but I do still have Emmett's webcam that I stole and hadn't returned. The fact that my laptop lays not two feet from my bed becomes blatantly clear to us both. Jasper gives it a questioning glance.

"Go for it," I finally reply. I'd done it several times before, only at his request—it'd be only fair for him to try it once.

His responding intake of breath and quick look in my direction leaves me wondering if he's up for this at all. Eventually, he swallows hard and nods.

"Okay," he says quietly, though he doesn't move at all.

"Okay," I repeat.

We're both sitting there rigid and unsure. I'm waiting for him to move, not knowing what the hell he's waiting for.

At the sound of a gentle clink, I look over at him to see him sliding his tongue ring back and forth between his lips. He turns slightly towards me and bites his lip, then asks, "So, who's going first?"


	5. Chapter 5

Jasper reaches over and hits my cheek a bit, trying to smack the dumbfounded expression from my face. His words had essentially stupefied me—when, exactly, did I sign up to masturbate in front of him? Did I miss the fine print somewhere?

"I'm joking," he indicates.

His words are an instant relief. I don't particularly _want_ to be nude in front of him, much less jack off in the same room. That just seems so... _gay_.

Jasper smiles and rubs the pad of his thumb over my cheek. I jerk my head away from his touch once I realize that it's there, but he doesn't even blink, unfazed. "You don't have to join in on my embarrassment," he says. "I deserve to suffer for what I did to you."

Is that what he thinks of this? My mouth opens and closes a few times, unable to form proper words. "Oh," I finally respond.

Jasper chuckles lightly at my stupid reply. "Cumming in front of a camera isn't much of a punishment, though," he ribs. He leans over top of me and reaches onto my bedside table to grab my laptop. He pauses for half a beat to examine me lying fixed beneath him, our faces less than a foot apart. The corner of his mouth twitches with a smile. "Is this charged?" he asks, though his eyes have traveled down, down, down past my head.

"Should be," I reply, fidgeting. He stares at my blank t-shirt for a moment, looking pensive about something unsaid. He sighs softly and clicks his tongue ring again, then changes his focus back to the computer.

He sits back down while I slyly slip out of bed in search of the webcam. It takes me several minutes, but I find it, still packed away in a cardboard box holding a bunch of shit from my old dorm room. I haven't used the webcam in the several months since I moved here to Port Angeles. I've had no reason to.

When I sit back on the bed, Jasper already has the chatroom website we'd met at up and prepped. He turns the camera so it's facing away from me, by my feet. He stands at the foot of my bed, positioning the camera just right so it shows him from his neck down to his knees—and then he's ready.

He runs both hands through his hair anxiously. "Are you _sure _you want me to do this?"

Jazz looks just like the first time I went nude on camera. There's curiosity in his expression, wondering how strangers and I will react to his body, while there's also the embarrassment, shyness, nauseousness. It takes big _cajones_ to put yourself out on a limb like that.

I would know.

Instead of replying, I finish connecting the camera to the chatroom and start it up. The online viewers can see him, nervously tapping fingertips and all.

"Now?" he squeaks.

There's something bizarrely pleasing about seeing him so unnerved. Is this my revenge, his punishment for making me look like a fool? As Jasper said, it's not _that_ bad of a punishment—it's hilarious, if anything.

I give him a solemn nod. "Whenever you're ready."

His face tightens, acknowledging my words, and he takes a few calming breaths before he starts. I prop a few pillows up and stretch out across my bed, getting comfortable. This is a show I can't miss—he's never done this before, so his stage fright must be something awful.

How _delightful_.

Jasper stretches, too, rolling his shoulders, twisting his arms so that the muscles in his torso coil and release. He has a tattoo on each of his upper arms. Although I can't see much from here, I can tell that one is colorful, the other monochromatic. His body is slimmer than mine, less brawny, but his muscles are defined nonetheless. It's hard to tell which of us is taller.

I can't deny that he has a fairly nice body; he would be gorgeous if he were an equally good-looking woman, that's for sure. That thought is sobering and mind-numbing all in the same blow. I don't want to dwell on the deceit that brought us to this point—it isn't who he is, and it isn't for me to hold it against him.

Oblivious to my thoughts, Jasper breathes out a single nervous laugh and begins. His right hand slides from his chest down to his abdominals, then to the elastic band of his shorts. His eyes meet mine for a split second before he looks away, his lips pulled into a tight line.

His hand slides further, ducking beneath the fabric. We both shift uncomfortably the moment he begins fondling himself.

Before now, the closest I could ever recall being to another practically-naked male was in the boys' locker room in high school. Most of us boys were ignorantly homophobic back then, before our narrow minds had opened up, before we'd gained an ounce of tolerance. No high school boy had drifting eyes in the locker room, for fear of earning a shiner, or worse. If someone went nude, no one _dared_ glance downward. Dicks and asses went unanimously ignored.

But this situation is far different from my prudish high school days. Jasper's actions aren't something I'm meant to _ignore_—this was my choice for his 'punishment', and so I'm obligated to watch him suffer.

Meaning, I'm obligated to watch him pleasure himself.

Sensing my spike in anxiety, another smile begins to form on Jasper's mouth. I've realized that he's a very smiley person; any situation that is even marginally humorous has Jasper unfailingly grinning ear to ear. Although he's generally open with his feelings, tonight his smile is lopsided and small, teeth digging into his cheek, eyes cast just meters to my right. It's almost as if he's masking himself from me.

Jasper steps backward a bit until he's leaning against my clothes dresser, opposite of my bed. His hand moves beneath his shorts in slow, even movements, stroking himself to an erection.

"Stop staring at me."

His words catch me off-guard. I hadn't really paid attention to what I was doing. My eyes bolt back up to Jasper's to see him smirking at my panicked expression.

Making a point to ignore him, I shift in bed again so my leg doesn't fall asleep. Jasper pays close attention to my body—his eyes track not just the movement of my leg, but the movement of my _dick_. My lack of underwear equals free movement of _the beast_, as I'm sure Jasper has noticed.

"Stop staring at _me_," I retort, only partially joking.

He must not hear me. His eyes linger on my crotch for several seconds before sliding back up to my chest. It doesn't take me long to realize that he isn't examining my shirt, but rather, my torso's shape _beneath_ the shirt. Jasper exhales shakily and keeps jerking his cock, staring at my body, spaced out.

Is he thinking about me, sexually? My own stomach flips with uneasiness at the sight of Jasper masturbating to me. He's obviously done it before, in the days before we'd met face-to-face, in the days when I believed him to be a woman and I was just a misled fool jerking off on camera for him... but it seems so much more real as he performs in front of me. So undeniably fucking _real_.

Jasper stops. He pulls his hand out and hooks both thumbs under the elastic in his shorts.

"I'm going to, uh..." His hands speak for him by gesturing to the shorts he's wearing. Jasper smiles sorrily and eases them down over his hipbones, trimmed pubes and...

My eyes close before I see anything else.

I hear him finish taking them off and exhale quietly again. "Do you have any lube?" he asks.

Shit. I forgot he'd probably need that.

I cautiously re-open my eyes and turn away from him before I get an eyeful of Jazz dick. My fingers fumble around in the drawer beside my bed until I grab hold of my handy lubricant. I give it to him, making sure to keep my eyes averted from anything... phallic.

Jazz squirts some in his hand, snaps the bottle closed and sets it on the dresser behind him. And then he gets to work. The wet, evenly-paced sounds the lube provides seem to echo in my room.

Looking at the laptop's screen, I can see his erection through my peripheral vision, both in front of me and on the monitor—I try diligently to overlook it, instead focusing on the webcam viewers' comments that have been wholly neglected until now.

His audience reveals mixed opinions of Jasper's show. Some are drooling over his cock—so _big, _so _tasty, _so _sexy_—while many others are accusing it of being a video, not a live feed. Many viewers see this as a problem, as Jasper hasn't been responding to any comments.

"They think it's fake," I murmur, noting all of the confusion and accusations onscreen.

"My cock?" Jasper laughs. "_Damn._ I've heard it called unbelievable before, but not _fake. _You were right about how flattering those people are."

Momentarily forgetting I'm supposed to keep my eyes away, I glance back at him. He looks more relaxed than before, less focused with his mouth slightly open. His body shakes slightly with the movement of his arm pumping himself into his fist.

Before I can stop myself, my eyes drift down. My brain registers the image of his penis before I realize I'm actually looking at it.

"Umm," I start to reply, but words fail me.

No fucking way.

No. _Fucking._ Way.

Jasper's cock is bigger than mine.

It can't be by more than an inch, but shit, men just know these things. It's impressively long—not as thick as mine, thank God—with a pale pink head, glistening wet with precum and lube, and his heavy sac beneath drawn tightly against his body. His right hand pauses and grips his slick cock at the base.

Jasper turns wary once he's noticed I've been looking at him. "Edward," he says cautiously, "what were you saying again?"

I finally drag my eyes away and manage to answer him. "They, um, think it's a porn video or something. Not live." I force myself to smile, though my throat suddenly feels dry.

"Oh." He turns to the webcam and assures the viewers it's really live. Their accusations begin to die down, only now they have requests for him, seeing as he's finally paying them a bit of attention.

I read off a few of their comments to Jasper. "You are sooo hot," I quote with a slow drawl. Jasper chuckles and returns to the task at hand, literally. "Really want to deep throat that dick. I can has number?" He and I both laugh at that one. "Nice balls, mate. Show your ass..."

He actually listens to that request, rotating himself so his bubble butt juts out towards the camera. I quirk an eyebrow at him once he peers over his shoulder. He just smirks and waves his ass at me mockingly.

His ass is pretty nice, I guess, for a guy. His skin is a creamy, light tan in color, and his butt is round, toned, muscular even. He clenches it.

My dick twitches in response. I laugh at the feeling, because _fuck_, the very first piece of ass I think about for two seconds gets me horny, even a dude's. That's kind of pathetic.

Jasper runs his left hand over a butt cheek and squeezes, toying with his webcam's viewers. "This isn't so bad, Edward," he says. "What else do they want me to do?"

I read the chat log to see what they've requested: self-sucking, fingering, dildos... butt-fucking your friend... None of which I want to see and/or participate in. I think I'd prefer to see him use his hand than anything else.

I shrug rather than answer. Instead of smiling like I expect him to, Jasper looks slightly put out by my sudden lack of enthusiasm. He turns around and settles his ass back on the dresser, cock in hand again. He widens his stance and lays one hand flat against the dresser's surface.

Instead of talking, he just continues jacking off. His index finger swipes over the white bead of precum on his tip and rubs it into the head. Then he returns to making a fist, sliding it loosely down and back up his cock, fingers brushing the tip before twisting back down.

My nerves return with a vengeance. How often does a straight man watch a gay man masturbate? It makes me feel odd, and honestly, a little sickly—how did I get myself into this kind of situation again? I'm always fucking up with Jasper. First it was a kiss, then another kiss, and now this...

"Can you hurry up?" I glance at my clock, hoping he isn't one of those men with unreal endurance. This may take a while.

"Care to give me visuals?" Jasper fires back.

I gape at him, kind of shocked that he'd word it so bluntly. _Visuals?_ My arms cross over my chest like an insecure girl getting her tits complimented for the first time.

Jasper doesn't appear at all surprised by my reaction. "Didn't think so," he mutters.

I suppose seeing something sexy would make him cum sooner, but I don't know what sort of things turn him on. What could I do to help? Strip?

Aw, shit.

No longer giving a damn, I pull my shirt over my head so I'm shirtless as well. If he likes my chest, he can ogle it. So long as he hurries the fuck up.

Jasper's hand slows. He wordlessly appraises my torso with his eyes, raking across my stomach to my shorts and back up again. They linger there as his hand begins to speed up, jerking his dick faster than it had been going before.

I stifle any and all negativity—my over-thinking here really isn't helping—and I try to relax. It's a boost to my ego to know he finds my body sexy, even if he is a friend. Beyond the insecurity I feel in this situation, a small, conceited part of me is doing a victory dance.

A sheen of sweat begins to form over Jasper's brow. He bites his lip and focuses intently on my chest, memorizing the finer details for a moment before squeezing his eyes shut. His head lolls back and he starts pumping himself with abandon, his hips thrusting forward to meet his strokes, literally fucking his hand.

The movement of his hips is fluid, smooth, strong. I can easily imagine that this is what he looks like when he fucks, sweating and lip-biting and rolling his hips, pounding away into whatever man may lie beneath him. He lets out the occasional whimper, but it seems he's attempting to silence himself; each time he makes a sound, his teeth dig harder into his lip. I'm not sure if he's usually this quiet or if he's only trying not to frighten me.

I read his viewers' comments for a couple minutes. The only sounds in the room are of Jasper, his miniature whines and groans of pleasure and the slick sound of his hand sliding over his dick.

Abruptly, the laptop dies.

Shit... I forgot that it wasn't fully charged.

Jasper's eyes reopen in confusion. He inquisitively glances at it, then at me. "Was that...?"

"Uh huh."

He looks down at his dick, swollen and straining with arousal. "Can I finish anyway?" he pleads.

It'd be an asshole move to deny him that. I nod, and he smiles in relief and asks if I have any tissues for him to finish with. I reach over onto my table again to grab my inconspicuous box of Kleenex—but a low moan from behind me makes me pause, halfway into reaching for it.

I look over my shoulder to see Jasper staring at my ass. As I turned over, my shorts had ridden down, making the first couple inches of my butt visible to him.

"Damn," he groans. His hips sporadically thrust forward, pushing his cock in and out of his fist.

Is this a visual that turns him on? I grab the box but remain stationary. If it'll make him cum sooner...

While I inwardly debate the pros and cons of my actions, my knees pull up against the bed so that my ass is propped up in the standard doggy-style position. I push my face down into my pillow, fearing that I'm going to blush. I've never been beneath another person in this position, much less another man. But if it'll help him, I might as well try. It's nothing he hasn't seen before anyway.

Jasper's curses become even louder. The sound of his hand on his cock picks up, matching pace with every other grunt and groan he emits.

He fantasizes about being on top of another man, then. Nice to know.

But what does it feel like to be on the receiving end? That has always been something I've wondered. Is taking a dick in the ass really pleasurable? It doesn't seem likely, but I've never asked anyone, researched about it or found out for myself. It's always been one of those unanswered questions lingering in the back of my mind every now and again, especially since I'd begun hanging out with Jasper, my first notable gay friend.

If a man is beneath another, does it feel good?

As if in reply to my infernal, internal questioning, the bed dips with his weight as Jasper kneels onto my bed behind me. He draws closer and pushes himself between my legs, so I can feel his body heat radiating off of him, just inches from my backside.

The next thing I know, my dick begins to harden. It comes from nowhere, triggered by no specific thoughts. Sensing Jasper's body behind me while I'm in this position reminds me of sex, apparently, because suddenly I can feel a low throbbing in my cock and arousal pumping through my bloodstream. My heart thuds in my chest and I tremble, because _fuck_, this is not the reaction I was expecting of myself.

Tentatively, Jasper's warm, dry palm lays flat against my lower back. My ass involuntarily quivers, making him curse again. I bite my pillow as Jasper's hand slides lower. He gently brushes his fingertips down one of my butt cheeks, then rests his hand cupped around it, barely squeezing. His tongue ring clicks in his mouth and he sighs. I can hear his other lubed hand stroking himself slowly.

His thumb traces down the few exposed inches of my ass crack, trailing lower...

I release the pillow and gasp. "I've never—"

"Shh, Edward," he interrupts immediately, as if he was expecting me to speak. "I would _never_ take advantage of you, baby. I'm not asking for that."

That isn't what I meant. I trust him enough to know he wouldn't do such a thing, not like this.

"I know," I whisper. My head turns so I can peek at him over my shoulder. "You're too selfless to try anything."

Jasper laughs through his nose. He leans forward and smooths his hand over my back, retreating from my nether regions. "No, you're just too selfless to push me away if I did."

I'm not sure what he means. Before I can analyze his words, he bends over me and pulls the tissue box from my grip. The mattress shifts again as he collapses onto his back beside me.

I awkwardly attempt to hide my erection as I flip over by covering it with my hand. He doesn't seem to notice, but I keep one knee up to block his view, just in case. It isn't that I'm ashamed of being hard right now, it's just another can of worms better left unopened. I'd rather not question it for now.

Jasper is far closer to cumming than I'd realized. He breathes in small huffs and closes his eyes, gyrating his hips in time with his hand's movement. A thin layer of sweat covers his torso and face from exerting himself for this long. His eyes tightly squeeze shut as he focuses on reaching his impending climax, while his mouth is unhinged, slackened with pleasure.

I can tell the moment he hits the brink—his forehead creases and his mouth drops open just as a warbled cry arises from his throat. The first spurt lands on his chest, followed by several more, painting his abs white with cum.

My own erection pulses, with jealousy or arousal. I'm not sure I want to know which one. I cover myself with my hand and squeeze firmly, a small attempt to force the engorging blood from my penis. It doesn't work, of course. It only hurts.

Jasper laughs quietly in post-coital bliss, clearly pleased with himself. A handful of tissues is used to wipe the streaks of white and the remaining lubricant from his body.

He stands up and heads to my adjacent bathroom to throw the tissues away, his still-erect dick bobbing up and down as he walks. His lower back has symmetrical dimples right above his ass, perfectly placed where thumbs could be, had someone been holding his hips from behind.

These are the things that I try not to notice.

But I can't stop noticing them.

As he walks back into my room, he pushes his barely wet hair back and grins at me. His cheeks are flushed pink, blue eyes alight while a small, innocent bead of sweat runs down the dip of his throat.

"Well that was fun," he proclaims obliviously. "Too bad the webcam people couldn't see me finish. That was a big load."

"Yeah," I respond blandly, trying not to let my frustration leak into my voice. I forcefully squeeze my cock again as Jasper sits back down. Fuck, ow.

He must see through my façade, because suddenly he looks worried. "You okay?" he questions. I answer with another 'yeah', but it doesn't pacify him. He examines my face for answers, then his eyes migrate down my arm to my inappropriately placed hand. His eyes widen the moment he realizes I'm hard. "Oh," he gasps. He looks back at me, blatantly shocked. "Crap. Do you need a minute or ten alone?"

I shake my head. Masturbating won't help anything—whenever I'd tried it, I couldn't help but think about the 'Jazz' I thought I knew before. No matter how many times I repeat the truth to myself, my brain doesn't want to think any differently about him. I don't want to jack off thinking about a _man. _That is why I'd forced myself to stop before, and that is why I haven't masturbated in weeks.

I rub my thumb experimentally over the head of my cock. It feels good, but the ache doesn't lessen at all.

"Do you, um... need assistance?" Jasper asks meekly.

I do a double-take. _Assistance?_

"Assistance?" I voice incredulously.

He nods. His fingertips touch my forearm gently but pull away just as quickly—Jasper's unsure of himself. "Nothing you don't want me to do, of course," he affirms. "I'm just... up for anything. I owe you, man, for all the times you've helped me."

He's offering _anything_? I still don't know quite what he means. He's willing to help me cum, in any way that I wish? Jasper eyes me anxiously, waiting for my answer. He licks his lips and I see yet another glimpse of that elusive tongue ring.

My answer comes out rather impulsively. Really impulsively.

"I could really go for a blowjob," I blurt.

Shit. That wasn't meant to be a request.

Jasper only grins. His hand slides over my arm and touches my stomach, tickling lightly with trimmed nails. He fingers the very top of my shorts. "May I?" he asks softly.

He truly is willing to blow me. I don't know if it's the lust or confusion clouding my brain, but I allow it and give him a nod. A blowjob does seem appealing, but from Jasper? I don't know how detrimental that would be to our already-fragile friendship.

It's difficult to have an emotional battle with oneself, I realize, when someone's head is inches away from sucking your dick. Jasper nudges my hands away from my crotch, then leans down and presses his lips against my hipbone, trailing hot, moist kisses from my hip to my bellybutton. I can feel myself harden fully at the prospect of getting my dick sucked—without a significant other, it's not exactly an everyday occurrence.

His hand gently pulls the elastic down, giving him access to my shortly trimmed pubes and the base of my cock. He sighs out a breath of warm air, making me shudder. I can't recall the last time I'd felt that. His lips kiss the base of my penis before backing away.

"Let's get these off," he requests, tugging at my shorts.

My hands are literally shaking with nerves, but I carry on and help him push my shorts down. My dick springs out joyously, as if in celebration of finally getting some head, even gay head. Jasper pulls my shorts all the way off and drops them beside the bed.

"Ohh, poor baby," Jasper coos at my dick. I manage to quirk an eyebrow at him, wondering why the hell he's cooing, but then I realize that my recent lack of sex may be somewhat obvious physically. He spreads my legs apart and settles in between them. His left arm curls under one leg, while the other hand finally touches my cock, grabbing hold and tilting it towards his mouth.

And then he kisses it.

I groan at the feeling, not so much in pleasure as frustration. I push a pillow under my head so I can watch him. His lips press tenderly against the tip, my leaking precum wetting his lips further. He licks the liquid from his lips, then cleans it all from the head of my cock.

Jasper doesn't suck right away, of course; that would be too predictable. Instead, he licks his way down my length, down to my balls, and takes one into his mouth. He looks up at me and rolls it between his lips with his tongue. His piercing glides with it, the warm metal being an odd, sexy contrast to the feel of his soft tongue. He releases me from his mouth after a moment and sucks gently at the looser skin of my sac.

And _God_, does it feel good. All of it. I squirm and hiss and pant at the pleasant feeling. My balls still ache, but he licks and sucks to the point where all I can focus on is the movement of his hand and mouth. His right hand strokes my cock slowly while the tip of his tongue finds its way north again.

Jasper finally takes the head of my cock into his mouth. His tongue does this flick, weave, rub thing that feels sublime, but he quickly switches it up and goes all the way down until my cock is hitting the back of his throat. He swallows—the muscles in his throat contract and squeeze the head in just the right way. My hips jerk at the feeling and my fist bangs against my bed frame's headboard.

"_Fuck_," I shout. Jasper just chuckles and hums, vibrating his throat around my cock.

His right hand grabs one of mine and places it on the back of his head. Does he want me to guide him? Cautiously, I press down, and another thick inch of my cock disappears into his pretty little mouth.

But I don't want to be the one calling the shots. He should do his own thing, please me in his own way. I shake my head and run my fingers through his hair instead, coaxing him to continue on his own. Jasper looks up in surprise, as if he's not used to taking over the reins.

I can feel the telling coiling in my gut and I know I won't last nearly as long as him. He bobs his mouth up and down on my dick, hollowing out his cheeks and jerking me off with each pass. I've got to hand it to him—he's good at sucking cock.

He continues until I'm ready to blow. I call his name as a warning in case he doesn't want a mouthful of jizz. Stubbornly, he ignores it and shoves my cock deeper into his mouth.

As I finally cum for the first time in weeks, I don't see fireworks or stars. The earth doesn't shatter and my mind isn't blown. The only thing I can see is Jasper, my hand tangled into his hair, his eyes closed, expression relaxed, lips wrapped tightly around my cock. He swallows my cum without gagging or even grimacing.

"Jazz," I moan, my hips bucking with small spasms. His mouth disconnects from my cock with a wet _pop_. He swallows the remainder of liquid in his mouth and kisses the tip of my cock one last time. A small dot of white cum remains on his lower lip, but he quickly licks it off and smiles.

And if I thought he'd smiled a lot before, his latest one blows all of his previous smiles out of the water. His eyes light up and his face cracks into a large half-moon of a grin. He just looks so, so happy.

He crawls back into his designated spot beside me and lies down. "How was that?" he asks impatiently.

Good question. My hands no longer tremble from nerves, but I can feel my anxiety brimming beneath the surface of everything else. His fellatio skills were spot-on, of course, but therein lies the problem.

I'm fairly certain that I'm straight. I'm not supposed to like getting head from a man, am I?

"That was helpful," I reply, and it's true. The constant dull ache has been removed in exchange for sweet euphoria. I know I should be surprised, or upset, or ashamed like most other straight men would be in this predicament... I know how I'm feeling isn't normal for a straight man. So why doesn't this feel wrong?

"You look tired," Jasper murmurs. He curls onto his side facing me and brushes his fingers over my ribs. "Go to bed, sleepyhead."

Yeah, he's definitely petting my ribcage. I glance at him from beneath my arm to see him looking at me with an adorably needy expression. "Are you looking to cuddle?" I deadpan.

Jasper purses his lips. "Maybe..."

His eyes get just a tiny bit wider and glossier, like a dog begging for a bone. With a heavy sigh, I lift my arm so he can scoot against my side. Jasper laughs victoriously and clears the bed of the tissues and laptop, then pulls my blanket snugly over the both of us. Well then, I guess he's spending the night here.

Curling against me, he rests his head against my side, his hand on my chest. At least we aren't spooning—although I definitely would be the big spoon if such a situation were to occur. Still, this is _cuddling_. It's a boundary that should never have been crossed.

But I can't take back my actions. I tilt my head down into his blond hair and breathe in, smelling the scents of shampoo and rain and man.

I have a feeling there will be something to regret in the morning.


	6. Chapter 6

I never truly noticed how seraphic Jasper's face could look until he'd fallen asleep. His eyelashes would flutter and his lips would twitch, his breaths warm and steady against my chest, his mind lulled deep into slumber by the gentle, pattering rainfall on my windowsill.

At first, it was easy to fall asleep with him. The warmth of his body against mine was oddly welcome, it'd been too long since I felt someone else lying beside me like this.

The storm worsened throughout the night, the light drizzle shifting to thunder and lightning and heavy torrents of rain. When a thunder strike would be particularly loud, Jasper would sometimes curl against me, even going so far as to weave his fingers into my hair as he slept.

I think my presence soothes him, on some level.

I awaken a few times during the night, mainly due to the weather. Each time it becomes progressively more difficult to fall asleep again. The less relaxed I am, the more my mind begins to race.

Something in me shifted when Jasper created a little niche for himself in my life. Suddenly I've been questioning things I've never thought would be questioned.

Am I turning bisexual?

Am I turning _homo_sexual?

I don't think I could be gay. I like women, and I've always liked women. But the signs are all there, like flamingly gay, red 'stop' signs that my body completely ignores.

The attraction is tangible, irrefutable. I've never felt so desirous against my will like this, especially not because of a man. There's something about Jasper that makes me want to stay his friend so needfully, and now I want... _more_?

It's a giant pill I can't swallow. I don't want to come to terms with the knowledge that I may, perhaps, find another man sexually appealing. It's never happened before, and it shouldn't happen if I'm straight, right? Men don't realize they're bi or gay when they're in their mid-twenties. It should happen when they're young, when they're in school and around other blossoming boys, just like it did with Jasper.

Or am I just stereotyping?

Even if I am, I feel like this isn't right. Am I getting aroused by Jasper because I'd originally lusted for him, assuming he was a woman online? That can't be true, because now, I sure as fuck realize that he's a man. If my brain were in denial about his gender, I wouldn't be thinking about his musculature so intently, or the way his soft cock now presses against my bare thigh as he sleeps.

Looking at porn, of course there have been times where a man would catch my eye. I would think,_ I'd like to have muscles like that_, or, _I wish my dick was that __big, then they could call me 'The Destroyer'._ But I'd never gotten off solely because of a man—until tonight, at least.

The worst of it all? _His_ mouth being on my dick made me cum. I didn't imagine a woman. I looked at his face, called his name as I came... I have a feeling that that is why Jasper was smiling so brightly tonight. I didn't deny my mixed feelings, for the first time.

Jasper pulls me from my thoughts by grunting and wriggling in his sleep. His hand slides down to my stomach and rests there, while his face turns further down into my armpit where his head is nestled. Something must change in his dream, because suddenly I feel his cock slowly begin to harden and lengthen against my leg.

Of course I have the worst luck. I don't think I can stand being pressed against his hard-on for the rest of the night, but I can't turn my body without our dicks touching, or risking getting my asshole impaled in my sleep.

I examine his sleeping form. The muscles of his body are so firm, his jaw has a small amount of stubble that itches my side, and his legs have sparse blond hairs that brush against mine when he moves every now and again. These aren't unpleasant things, but they're different. Definitely different.

His cock is warmer when it's hard. I can clearly feel the baby-soft skin of his swollen erection pressing lightly against me. If I focus hard enough, I swear I can feel his heartbeat there, pulsing faintly on my thigh.

I try not to focus, naturally.

His fingers twitch on my stomach. I drag my eyes down to his long fingers and clean, bitten nails, up his forearm, to his bicep. It doesn't look like he goes to the gym much, but he's fit enough to be considered quite attractive.

_Attractive._ I don't know when my mind started thinking of Jasper in that way.

The thought of this _change_ makes me literally feel sick to my stomach. I can comprehend how and why people can love others of their own gender—I'm not bigoted. I'm completely supportive of gays, I _understand_, and I'm obviously not homophobic if I can remain the best of friends with Jasper.

But I've never placed myself in that picture. Before Jazz, not once have I ever had a doubt that I was straight. Is this change solely because of him, then?

But it's not like being gay is contagious.

I think.

I rub my face with my free hand—the one that isn't wrapped around Jasper—and try in vain to convince myself I'm just making up all of these feelings. They're just figments of my imagination.

But it's not like I'm in denial.

I think.

_Fuck._

Jasper stirs in his sleep once more, turning his head to rest his cheek back on my chest. He coughs once, almost pitifully, causing me to smile despite my heavy thoughts.

I inspect the tattoo on his right upper arm. It's hard to see all of the details in the dim light, but I know from previous glances that it's colorful. Curls of red, yellow and blue all swirl outward like paintbrush strokes from the letters in the center. The typography makes the words on his arm somewhat difficult to read from afar, plus it's usually covered by his shirt. Close up and naked, though, I can finally tell what it says.

_No denial_, the colorful words read.

My heart jumps up in my chest. I read over it several times, hoping that it's just a trick of the light, hoping that his tattoo seriously isn't fucking talking to me.

But oddly enough, my eyes are correct. _No denial._

Is it telling me that I'm _not_ in denial? Or is it telling me to stop denying the truth?

I swallow my heart down and try to imagine what had inspired Jasper to get such a tattoo. He must have had to deal with denial before; of what, I'm smart enough to guess.

How Jasper could ever be in denial about his sexuality is beyond me. Maybe his teenage years were shrouded with deceit, he never talked much about those. The fact that he's blatantly out of the closet now means he's not in denial anymore, right? Perhaps that is why he got the tattoo...

Before I can let my mind run away from me, I force myself to go back to sleep. There's no point in over-analyzing shit.

Thankfully, my brain takes a lunch break, so I do manage to get a few short hours of rest. When I reawaken due to another bout of thunder, my body feels heavy from sleeping so deeply. It's less dark thanks to the small amount of morning light creeping in through my window. The storm outside seems to be finally clearing up.

My traitorous dick feels heavy and hot—morning wood, no doubt, probably thanks to Jasper's twitchy hand that has moved dangerously close to my balls. I'm just thankful I haven't had a nocturnal emission or something equally embarrassing.

My arm is curled under Jasper's neck still, fingers threaded through his hair. He's sound asleep, though, breathing quietly against my nipple. One of us must have kicked the blanket down because now it only covers our legs, my boner and the majority of Jasper's skyward ass.

A creaking sound abruptly comes from my left. My eyes bolt open and flash to my door, only to see my father already stepping forward into my room. It's far too late to stop him from seeing anything. Seeing _us_.

His observant eyes seem to linger on us for seconds, although it feels like hours. It's obvious what this looks like. With all our clothes scattered across the floor, our supine bodies wrapped closely together, my tenting erection and Jasper's bare ass crack clearly on display, there's no doubt my father knows that Jasper and I are a little more than 'just friends'.

Carlisle looks embarrassed once his eyes finally meet mine. "Your mother requested I collect your wet clothes," he explains himself in a whisper. "I tried knocking."

My breath catches in my throat. He slinks forward into the room, bending over to pick up Jasper's wet jeans and shoes. He attempts to keep his eyes averted from us, but glances up a couple of times, scrutinizing our position.

Jasper starts to wake at the most inopportune moment. He stretches his back like a cat, groaning in contentment, and he latches onto my torso like a baby monkey to its mother.

Mother. _Mom_. The mere thought that my mother will probably find out about _this_ makes me feel sicker than ever. The woman who hopes with all of her heart to have grandchildren someday—surely knowledge that her only son sleeps with men would devastate her completely, right? Even if it isn't true, my parents wouldn't know those minute details. The possibility of her never having grandbabies would shatter her hopeful little heart.

"Don't tell Mom," I choke out. My father looks at me with confusion, and in the same moment, Jasper tenses.

Right now, I don't give a damn if Jasper hears my words. He isn't my top priority.

I can't hurt my mother with this knowledge, not like this, not when I don't even know what's real and what's not myself.

My father's eyes take on a worried look. "Son, I don't—"

"Don't tell Mom," I repeat even louder. My voice cracks with desperation.

I can just imagine my mom, broken and sobbing if she found out her only son is intimate with men. My father may be accepting of anything I do, but my mother simply is _not_. She's complex and irrationally judgmental at times, and I can't predict how she'd respond to this sort of thing. I don't even want to think about what kind of other reactions she may have.

Jasper is definitely awake by now. He silently pulls the blanket up a bit to cover himself and my stomach. My hard-on has understandably vanished for the most part, but my father still looks startled, shifting his weight from foot to foot and glancing between the both of us.

"Your mother isn't going to judge you, Edward," Carlisle says soothingly to me. "She knows about you two. She's a smart cookie."

She knows?

She knows _what_?

The pronounced uneasiness in my stomach escalates, clenching and churning until bile actually rises in my throat. I think I'm gonna vomit.

"Get out," I hiss between clenched teeth, gesturing for my father to leave. He's bemused as ever, but heeds my words by taking a step back. "Get out," I urge him to hurry. He drops the clothes he'd picked up and scuttles away into the hallway, shutting the bedroom door behind him.

I pull myself away from Jasper and launch up out of bed, stumbling towards the bathroom. I hardly manage to flip up the light switch before I start retching over the toilet bowl.

It's just a very mild case of dry-heaving, but what it means is just the same. I'm not ready for whatever _this_ is. I wasn't ready for my father to see how fucked my love life has become. I was alright with my parents' harmless curiosity before, but I'm not ready to come clean and tell them that my dear friend Jasper does, in fact, turn me on.

I do realize that I'm being a little bitch about this. My mouth tastes bitter with bile even without having vomited. My stupid ass is still nude from last night as I sit, tired and shivering, on the cold bathroom floor.

Jasper joins me in the bathroom a few minutes later, wearing just a pair of shorts and bringing me my own pair. He tries to smile like he usually does, but it looks forced, unhappy, defeated. I know my words must have burned him. It wasn't intentional, of course, but I still managed to hurt him.

_'Don't tell Mom'_ is the equivalent of '_Don't tell anyone'_. That means I'm officially in the closet.

Awesome.

I take the pair of shorts from his grip to cover my dick with it. Jasper kneels beside me and sits down on his shins. His hand reaches out, uncertain, and touches my back.

I let out a quivering breath. _He_'s soothing _me_?

He takes my reaction as a positive one. Slowly, his warm hand rubs along my spine in a small attempt to make me feel better. "You alright?" he asks.

I nod quietly and spit into the toilet, just so I have a reason to flush it.

Jasper drops his hand, rises to his feet and turns the sink's faucet on. From this angle, I can't really tell what he's fiddling with on the counter.

Like a mind-reader, he raises my toothbrush up to show me, already having it prepared with toothpaste for me. I can't help but smile at how attentive he is. He puts some of my toothpaste on his finger and brushes his own teeth with it. I would've let him use my toothbrush if he'd asked, but I assume he's walking on eggshells, wisely trying not to push me any further. Smart boy.

His other shoulder is on display for me now. The monochromatic tattoo on his upper arm looks like shattered glass with letters of ink, or blackened blood, painted beneath the fragments. The words below are slightly warped with the pattern of glass shards.

_No fear_, the warped words read.

No denial, no fear. The 'denial' tattoo is colorful and lively, prismatic almost, while the 'fear' one is all gloomy shades of gray and black. They must be so similar yet different for a reason. But what do they mean?

My eyes drift of their own accord to his bare back. His toned back muscles shift and flex beneath his smooth skin as he brushes. The shorts he wears hang low on his hips, showing off the top of the 'V' located low on his front side and those cursed dimples on his back.

Seeing the dimples makes me think of sex, holding him by his hips and pushing my thumbs into them as I help him ride my cock, reverse-cowgirl style.

I fucking hate those dimples.

My dick springs to life at that mental image, lifting the shorts in my lap a bit. I curl closer to the toilet to keep Jasper from noticing my arousal. He glances at me sadly, as if he thinks I'm hugging the bowl because I'm still feeling queasy. Yeah, I wish.

Jasper finishes brushing his teeth and stoically washes his hands free of toothpaste. He stares at himself in the mirror for a moment, his expression still laced with a tinge of sorrow.

I can't stop myself from asking, "What are you thinking?"

He smiles again, but the happiness is still absent. "I just wish things were easier for you," he speaks softly. He doesn't explain any further.

We're both silent for several minutes. He fixes his hair while I rest back on my ankles and try to recuperate my brain. My basic thought processes are overwhelmed when he's nearby, I swear.

I ponder my father's words from before. My mother _knows_ something about Jasper and me? Do they believe that Jasper and I are a couple? Perhaps they do, since I never corrected myself when I told them that I'd gone on a date with a man named 'Jazz'. I'm sure they can connect that name to Jasper's easily enough.

My parents think I'm at least partially gay. And my dad already 'knows' that I'm in the proverbial closet of gaydom.

In a way, I must be bisexual—there's no denying that my erection is here for Jasper. I don't know why that is, but there's no reason for me to keep lying to myself. I do find him attractive, not just as a person, but for the man he is. Physically and all.

And honestly, that revelation terrifies me.

"You should let them know," Jasper says suddenly. "Your parents deserve to know the truth."

My eyes slide back over to him. He looks down at me and appears sympathetic, as if he knows precisely what I'm feeling right now. Maybe he does.

"It's not that easy," I hedge.

"You think it was easy for me, coming out?" he asks. I don't know the answer to that, but I can assume it wasn't plain sailing. "My mom threw me out onto the street for a full month when I told her I was gay. She considered me a sinner back then, and shit, she probably still does. The only difference is that now she values her son more than her creed."

I thought as much. That sort of thing can't be easy for a parent to swallow, can it?

Perhaps that is reasoning behind his tattoos. He didn't deny his sexuality, and he didn't fear telling his mother about it. That must have been such a tough thing for him to go through. I can't imagine a young Jasper getting his loved ones' backs turned on him for such a trivial thing, much less that of his own mother.

What sort of mother would do such a thing? A prejudiced one, no doubt, which can describe my own mother when she's in another one of her moods. I love her like any mama's boy would, and having her disown me would rattle me to the bone. I couldn't tell her something like that unless I wanted to risk having the same thing happen to me.

"Your mom needs to know," Jasper urges. "Waiting won't help."

But what could I tell her?

_Hey, Mom. I enjoy thinking about my male friend Jasper sexually. I don't think I am completely bi, but I really want to see how good he'd feel riding reverse-cowgirl on my cock. I kind of fantasize about what it'd be like to have that dick of his in my ass. What's for dinner tonight?_

That wouldn't go so well. Even if I did explain to them what my father had seen, they wouldn't understand it anyway. I can't exactly 'come out of the closet' when I'm not in one to begin with, am I? Is there a closet for almost-possibly-bi people, too?

"I'm not _coming out_, though," I sigh.

"Dammit, Edward. _Please_ reconsider for a moment."

My brain hits the 'pause' button. His words throw me for a loop—what, exactly, does he think I'd be telling them?

He turns to me completely, his expression serious. "For some people, coming out is natural. They come to terms with who they are and they let everyone know it. Some people keep it secret for a while, until they're ready for others to know—others remain in denial, like Peter. I was one of the unfortunate souls who didn't want to believe they liked men. I was in the fucking closet, dating _Alice_ because that is what society claimed was _normal_. Realizing you're gay isn't a simple thing, I know that."

Realization finally hits me, hard. He must believe that I like men, that I'm in this so-called gay _closet_, and that I'm hiding that truth from my parents. But I'm not hiding anything that major. I've... _felt_ some things, yes, but those things don't make me gay, do they?

Stressing his voice, he continues, "I went through this same exact thing, Edward—"

"Jasper," I cut him off rudely. I'm not sure when he began assuming that I love cock. Was it because of the blowjob I let him give me? Because I allowed him to touch me in that way? "I _don't_ like men," I emphasize exasperatedly. _With the exception of you, _my mind tacks on.

My answer ticks him off. He narrows his eyes into slits and stares at me—I can't tell if he's pissed off or not. His eyesight lowers, and then oddly... he smirks.

"Then _why_ are you still hard for me, Edward?"

I automatically glance down to where he's looking. The head of my hard cock peeks out from the unworn shorts laying atop it. I cover it up again and glare at him.

"It's morning wood," I defend. "Not because of you."

"That's bullshit." The tendons in Jasper's neck tighten as he clenches his jaw. "Don't tell me that you weren't checking m—"

"I'm not a fag."

The words slip out before I realize what I'm saying. His reaction isn't unexpected at all.

He punches me as hard as he can in the shoulder, forcing me to topple backwards against the bathtub. My head hits the porcelain with a loud thunk.

"Oww," I moan.

"_Fuck you_, Edward," he spits, his face reddening in anger. He throws my toothbrush at me, nearly hitting me in the eye and getting toothpaste all over my cheek. "Fuck you."

He storms out of the bathroom. He curses again when he finds his clothes, still wet and probably a bit stiff. My dresser thumps as he kicks it.

Jasper throws a mean right punch, I know my shoulder is going to bruise. I rub the sore muscle and manage to stand up to put my shorts on, but I don't bother putting a stop to his fury.

"I'm trying to help, but..." He sighs and pauses by the bathroom doorway. He slips one of my clean shirts on and disappears again without looking me in the eye. "Fuck this shit. I don't need this."

I hear my bedroom door open, then close. And then I'm alone.

Can't say I didn't deserve it. I hate myself sometimes.

Fifteen minutes later, I'm dressed and smelling fresher, though my spirits aren't any higher. Jasper's long gone by now because I'm a stupid asshole who can't shut his mouth.

I consider calling or texting him, just to say I'm sorry for insulting him, don't hate me, I didn't mean it, forgive me. The word wasn't intentional, just a hurtful slip of the tongue, but I can't make excuses. I deserved getting punched for that.

The laptop, webcam and lube are all put back where they belong. The night before replays vividly in my mind, and it's a bittersweet feeling because I know there's a chance I'll never have another night like that. Not with a man. Not with Jazz.

It scares me to think that I _do_ want to experiment further with a man, to see if I like everything that foreign world has to offer. Jasper hadn't taken advantage of me last night, I know that. The word _bisexual_ swims around in my head, but I'm reluctant to accept it. There's got to be another explanation, another word for how I feel.

After grabbing our wet clothes—both Jasper's and mine, as he'd left his own behind—I step outside my room and head down the staircase. The smell of breakfast foods waft through the ground floor. I head to the washing machine and start washing a load, since it's one of the few domestic chores I know how to do with any ounce of proficiency.

I follow my nose to the kitchen, only to unexpectedly find my father cooking rather than my mother.

"Good morning," he says cheerfully. Mom's frilly, pink apron is tied around his waist, causing me to raise an eyebrow at him. If anyone should be questioning their sexuality here, it's him.

Jasper's soft laughter carries over from another room. I peek into the living room and see him and my mother huddled together on a sofa, gushing like a pair of old grannies over an album of my childhood pictures.

He was downstairs with Esme.

He'd rather be down here, being badgered by my mother, than upstairs with me.

"Edward," my mom says once she notices me. Jasper lifts his head once he realizes I've come downstairs. He's truly smiling now, remnants of the laughter still hanging on his lips. My mother waves me over with a matching, amused grin. "Jasper said he wanted to see these," she explains herself before I can speak.

I roll my eyes and huff in annoyance, but can't resist sneaking a peek at what has them so amused.

The page they're on is a collection of my streaking phase. Apparently, when I was little, it was the funnest damn thing to go running around without any clothes on. My mother loved taking pictures of baby Edward ass.

"Look at his little pee-pee," Jasper snickers, pointing to a picture of me. I was two years old at the time, naked as usual and jumping out of a basket.

"I was two!"

"Three," my mother corrects. Jasper laughs even harder, so I just flip them off and retreat back into the kitchen. My dad isn't much better company, though. Knowing what he saw this morning makes it extremely awkward to be around each other.

We never make fancy-shmancy breakfasts like this unless there are guests over. Dad finishes cooking after a few minutes and everyone gathers into the dining room. Jasper unexpectedly takes a seat directly beside me, while my parents sit a little further down at the other end of the table.

I mouth 'I'm sorry' to Jasper, passing him the bacon as an olive branch, of sorts. He shrugs and starts eating. I don't know if he's forgiven me, but he's not leaving or kicking me in the face. That's a good start.

He and I eat wordlessly as my parents chatter on about work and neighbors. Jasper arranges the food on his plate to look like a miniature cock and balls. I add another strip of bacon to make it twice as long, which makes Jasper and me snicker like we're immature little kids again. Jasper steals the rest of my bacon to make the pseudo-cock thicker. A little bit of egg white on the tip makes it look like it's jizzing, kind of.

Once our laughter dies down, Jasper starts eating our phallic masterpiece, starting with the cock. He runs the meat over his lips and smirks when I begin to shift uncomfortably. Thinking of any 'cock', be it a bacon cock or not, combined with Jasper's mouth makes me remember last night when my dick was tapping the back of his throat.

I finish eating before Jazz does. Since I'm not a part of my parents' conversation, I keep my focus on Jasper, not-so-subtly watching him as he eats. He squirms and smiles under my gaze, which fuels me to prop my chin on my hand, my elbow on the table, and stare at him intently. He sticks his tongue out at me and continues eating the delicious bacon I willingly sacrificed for his enjoyment.

I hear my mother's telltale sigh of adoration. We glance over at my parents to see that they're both staring at us, trying to hide their smiles. Carlisle jumps up and takes their cleared plates back into the kitchen while my mother just... beams.

"You remind me of Edward's father, when we were your age," she tells Jasper. "Such a handsome young man. If I wasn't married and twenty years your senior, trust me..."

I glower at her. Jasper just takes it in stride, though.

"Oh, I don't mind pretty cougars like yourself, ma'am," Jasper says with a wink, causing my mother to blush. Is he flirting with her? He doesn't like women, so he's clearly just toying with her a bit. Still, eww.

"You Cullens must have good taste in men, eh?" Jasper teases. He looks pointedly at me when he says it.

Esme coughs and rises to her feet. "Uhh, yes," she responds, suddenly at a loss for words. She clears her end of the table and walks off into the kitchen.

I call Jasper a dickface and punch him in the arm. He doesn't need to suggest that I have any type of 'taste' in men, especially not to my mother. He grimaces and claims he was joking. I don't particularly feel like laughing.

Twenty minutes later, our sour moods and the storm outside have cleared up. Jasper and I sit out on the floor of the front deck, watching the last of the rain droplets drip from the awning above us.

Jasper curls his knees up to his chest. I turn my face to the wind and breathe in the fresh smell of rain, staying relaxed while I can. Today hasn't been a good morning so far and I don't want to argue with him anymore.

"I'm sorry if I assumed..." Jasper starts.

I immediately know what he's talking about—his false assumption from before, about me being attracted to men and how I should tell it to my parents... Just because I can get aroused by _him_ doesn't mean I have to explain jack shit to my parents. There's nothing to explain to them, anyway.

A little thought worms its way into my brain. What if he's right, though? What if I do like men and had been suppressing those feelings all along?

Or is Jasper just so irresistible that he's turning me bi?

No. But I think there _must_ be a fractional part of me that lusts for men, too, and it'd just taken until Jasper for me to figure it out. There isn't another logical explanation that would answer why I'm so attracted to him. Even if he's the first and only man I've crushed on, it still means I do desire another man. That makes me bisexual by default.

_I'm bi. _Those words feel awkward to think.

"You're awfully quiet," he speaks again, worriedly.

I run my fingertips over the wooden floorboards, partitioning my focus so I stay level-headed. "When did you realize you were gay?"

His surprise at my question is strangely minimal. "High school, halfway into my senior year. That was when I really first accepted it," he answers. "This was after Alice and I broke up, so I already knew I was probably exclusively attracted to other men. We went to a party and I met a twink that was about my age. This boy looked like a bottom, but he wasn't. He took me upstairs, then he took my virginity." He rests his chin on his withdrawn knees and stares off into the front yard. "That was my first gay sexual experience."

It occurs to me that I don't know what 'twink' means. I can guess what 'bottom' means, though, that's obvious enough.

"So are you a, uh, bottom?" I ask.

Jasper shrugs. "Depends on who I'm with," he says simply. "I don't mind either way. Sometimes there's nothing better than a tight little ass to pound your cock into." He licks his lips at the thought and smirks. "Bottoming is just as fun, though."

That one deserves an eyebrow raise. "Is it? I thought the guy on top would have the better time, since..." Well, I can't imagine what taking it up the butt would feel like. It can't feel any better than being on top, right?

"You've never played with your prostate?" Jasper asks. I gawk at him in response. "You know, that sweet little spot inside of you? It's the male g-spot."

I blink, completely bewildered. I never knew that part of my body was a pleasurable spot. _Prostate?_ What's next, my spleen? It takes me several seconds to comprehend that piece of information. "N-No," I stutter.

He looks sympathetic. "You're missing out on so much," he says softly.

We're silent for another moment as I absorb everything he's told me. He's only known that he's gay for a few years now, but he's so sure of himself, so doubtless. I don't know if he's ever had such conflicting feelings about his own sexuality, or if I'm the only one spinning in circles trying to deny how I feel.

"I'm confused," I admit.

"About prostates?"

"No." I fidget and look away from him, unable to handle eye-contact right now. "About... me."

"I think I'm confused about you, too," he says. "Sorry for assuming, again. I just... I could have sworn you were feeling something yesterday night, but that must have been wishful thinking on my part." He curls closer into himself and tucks mouth against his knees. "No guy would turn down a free blowjob, right?" he mumbles.

What did he think I was feeling last night? I _was _really aroused because of him, that is why he blew me in the first place. But I wonder if he actually figured out that I am bisexual before even I knew. Am I really so transparent? Or did he know I fancied him all along?

"That is what I'm confused about," I confide anxiously. "I'm doing things most men don't. Why do I feel this way?" I clench a fist in my hair, tugging it painfully in frustration. "Why the fuck am I attracted to _you_? I don't even like men."

Jasper's eyes widen. He lifts his head and stares at me, startled. "Is it just pent-up lust?" he asks.

My head shakes furiously. "No."

"Are you bi-curious, maybe?"

I pause for a moment. Is that the word I've been looking for? Bi, but not _really_ bi? Interested but not quite willing? Yeah, bi-curious sounds about right.

"I don't know. Probably."

He hums, thinking. "What would you do if I kissed you right now?"

I tilt my head and stare back at him. "I'd punch you," I answer truthfully. "Or I'd kiss you back."

"Can I kiss you then? I'm a risk-taker."

His legs shift down onto the floorboards, and he leans into me before I'm able to provide a reply. His hand curls around my neck, bringing me closer to him. I breathe out heavily in shock as he closes the gap, brushing his lips just barely against mine. Then he waits for me to counter his move.

His mouth rests against my own for several tense seconds. My whole body clamps up with paralysis. How I could willing kiss him _before_ but not now is a conundrum; I think I want to try, but I'm still too afraid to move.

Slowly, he pulls away again.

"Hm," is his only comment. I begin to worry as his expression sullies, looking no longer curious, but intense.

He stands up abruptly. "I'll be right back," he mutters chastely.

I scramble to my feet as he enters the house again. He comes back out just a minute later, shoes on and holding his wallet and car keys. "I should be getting home," he sighs. "Have to shower and work tonight, so..." Jasper steps off the deck and starts heading to his car.

It takes me a couple seconds to get moving, but I swiftly follow after him, unwilling to let him escape so suddenly. "You're leaving? What did I do wrong?"

He shakes his head as he unlocks his car door. "Are you sure you want us to be friends?"

"_What_?" I exclaim. "Of course I do!"

He turns back around to face me and rests himself against his car.

"Is that _all_?" he challenges. I flinch back at the way he says the words with such animosity. "Do you want to be friends, or more? Or nothing at all? Am I just pushing my affections onto you?"

My mouth gapes open. What is he asking, if I want to be 'just friends'? Or if I want to date him, or fuck him, or... nothing?

"I want to be friends," I reinstate assuredly.

He groans and pushes his palms into his eyes frustratedly. "Draw a line, then," he pleads. "I don't want to scare you away because I keep making assumptions of what you want. Draw a line for me, and make it obvious. Otherwise I'm going to fuck up again like I did last night."

Is he speaking of his masturbation in front of me, or the blowjob? That was an err in judgment? He drops his hands and stares back at me, with red eyes and a bitten lip, looking so fucking disconcerted. I wish I could make him feel better. My fingers twitch against my sides, wanting to do just that.

"Stop _looking_ at me like that," he breathes.

"Like what?"

"So seriously! Like you..." His eyes move down to my hands. Unthinkingly, I lift my arms toward him and move closer. He exhales loudly as my hands lightly grip around his hips. "_God_."

Jasper's so upset with me. Doing the only soothing thing I can think to do, I pull him into a hug. My arms curl around his thin waist and pull him firmly against me. After a second, his arms lift up and wrap around my neck.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," I whisper in his ear. He pulls back slightly to look me in the face. His eyes dart down to my lips, and I subconsciously lick them. His mouth twists with the slightest bit of a smile, so I hold him tighter, trying to squeeze his happiness to the surface. "Are we good?"

"We're good," he avows. He moves his hand to the back of my head and messes with my hair for a second, playfully curling the short hairs around a finger. "I really do need to leave, though."

Reluctantly, I pull away. His hands slide down to my chest and my fingers still hesitate on his hipbones. "Your clothes are still in the house," I mention. "I started washing them, since I thought you had left."

"You can return them to me the next time we hang out," he offers.

"Next week?"

He snorts. "Yeah, sure. Anything you want." His hands slip down my arms, and our hands join for the shortest of seconds before he drops them. "Anything."

Now, I finally understand what he offering.

Jasper opens his door and slides inside. His car is old and ugly, with chipped paint and an out-of-fashion model, but it runs well—it's proof enough that although Jasper isn't rich, he's a survivor. He manages well enough on his own.

He starts the engine and closes his door. "Just let me know," he says.

We say our adieus and he leaves. I stand in the driveway for a few minutes after, reflecting on all he'd said, feeling phantom warmth on all the skin that he'd touched.

When I turn around, there's movement in the kitchen window. My nosy mother, no doubt, spying on the two of us.

_She knows._ My father's words finally ring true.

The title _bi-curious_ clings itself to my being, and oddly, it isn't all that unwelcome. It's my feelings in a nutshell, isn't it?

I step inside and return upstairs, bypassing my parents without a sidelong glance. My room surprisingly smells of Jasper and sweat and sex, and my dick stirs to life as the memory of Jasper's cock and cum-face plays through my mind.

Yeah. I'm definitely a little bi-curious.


	7. Chapter 7

Gay porn frightens me.

Several nights after Jasper left, I sit on my bed with my laptop, looking at all these free porn sites crafted exclusively for gay men. My dick is pulled out of my boxers and in my hand, but it isn't hard.

Watching the porn doesn't stimulate me at all like being with Jasper did. If anything, it actually scares me a little. Or a lot. Sixty-nining, nut-to-butt, sword-fighting... None of those positions really turn me on when two men are involved.

I watch a man wiggle several of his lubricated fingers in another man's ass, which makes me cringe and hit the 'back' button. A second attempt causes me to stumble across a man's _tongue_ in another's hole. I change the page again, unable to stomach watching such outlandish intimacies.

They aren't all so bad, and most of it doesn't sear itself into my retinas, but still. I feel the need to familiarize myself with this sort of thing so I can have a better understanding of what most gay men do in bed.

_Baby steps_, I remind myself.

So I continue watching. And cringing.

One video has a man practically plowing into the other while the man beneath him jerks his own cock as fast as he can go. They're sweaty and panting, the one below loudly moaning his '_right there_'s and '_don't stop_'s before he cums loudly, spurting his load all over their bed. The curious part is that it doesn't look _completely_ faked. It seemed like he really enjoyed it. Jasper must have be telling the truth—a dick in the ass does feel good.

The porn doesn't turn me on, not quite. Some sensual parts do make me harden a bit, but after about an hour of exploring different porn websites, I've only managed to stay fully hard for a few minutes at most. My semi remains, though, too soft to masturbate but too aroused to ignore.

It takes an open mind, but I try to pay attention to what attributes I could kinda-maybe-sorta find attractive in these men. The bulging biceps and ripped abs do nothing for me, nor does body hair or massive cocks. I don't like the meatheads or even the more feminine, boyish men. Instead, my eyes feel drawn to ones with Jasper's sort of physique; thin, perhaps lightly muscled, with pretty-boy faces and an almost flirty air to them.

Jasper must be the ideal person for my bi-curious feelings then. I like his build, his face, his personality. If there's any man that could stir such foreign sexual feelings inside of me, it's probably him. That may be what makes him so different.

Another video grabs my full attention. A man lies flat on a bed while a smaller man—a fresh-out-of-high school boy, really—sucks him off. The boy is lean and blond, like Jasper, with a wide mouth and brown eyes. He licks his partner's shaft lovingly, running his tongue up and down along the underside.

The man pulls the boy up and kisses him deeply. The boy on top wraps his arms around his lover and slowly gyrates his hips, rubbing their lower halves together.

This seems more real, too. It's not hardcore, so it's not scary or deterring. I've never been one for softcore, emotional porn, but this video seems to showcase what real coupled men may do. This is what I was looking for.

The man soon readies himself with a condom and lube, and the boy above gently sinks himself down onto him. They kiss for another moment before the boy begins moving, slowly rising up and pushing back down onto the man's erection.

Blondie lets out a small cry of pleasure. When I imagine that I'm the one making him feel good, that sound is sexy even to my ears.

My fingers circle around my shaft and instinctively stroke a few times. I remove my hand a few seconds later and clutch my bedsheets with it, masochistically unwilling to let myself continue down that road.

It isn't so much a guilty conscience as it is lingering confusion that's keeping me from enjoying the porn. I've figured out that some of it actually does turn me on—the aesthetics and mechanics of how two men fornicate intrigues me, if nothing else. I don't know if whether it's because I secretly like to watch men fuck, or if I just like the circumstances, the sex, and my libido ignores gender altogether.

I watch for a while until the blond boy's hair is darkened and dripping with sweat, cheeks flushed, while the man below him pistons himself inside deep and fast. With a fist wrapped around his cock, the boy finally pants that he's about to cum.

I close the browser and laptop. The sounds of their sex echoes in my ears, reminding me of the soft little grunts and whimpers Jazz had made when he touched himself like that.

My dick isn't quite stiff, but not flaccid, either. It's tucked back into my boxers and the laptop is placed on the nightstand.

After preparing for bed, I curl under my covers and try to sleep. The usual rain makes its unwelcome presence known like the last time Jasper was here, and I remember for the thousandth time how good Jazz looked when his mouth was wrapped around me.

I fall asleep sooner than my dick can.

* * *

After scheduling another get-together a few days later, I meet Jasper and company at one of those fancy, big-city malls in Seattle. Apparently I'm a bit late, since Alice looks ready to toss me in a vat of acid for making her wait.

Riley's here, too, clinging to Alice and pecking kisses to her neck while she glares daggers at me. Her fingers are wrapped through his belt loops and their hips are crossing a few PDA lines. I momentarily feel sorry for leaving Jasper with the two of them.

"You're slower than shit," Alice sniffs. "You're lucky we're patient motherfuckers."

"Can it, Phallus," I return teasingly, "You know it's a long drive, and I got a little lost on the way here. Sue me."

Jasper laughs and repeats, "Phallus."

"You did not just refer to me as a penis! Oh, it's on, nukka. It's _on_."

Rather than attacking me, she pushes Riley away for a moment to give me a hug. Riley startles slightly, straightening his spine as I hug her back and chuckle into her hair. Apparently he's not accustomed to how friendly his girlfriend is with every good-looking male in the general vicinity, but that's just how Alice is.

"Thanks for coming," she whispers, squeezing my neck a little too tightly. "Jasper's been a whiny baby all week. I thought a day out would help cheer him up, even if he does hate shopping."

I tug her arms away from my shoulders and glance at Jasper. He's standing off to the side with Riley, watching us with his fingers shoved in his jeans pockets. The corner of his mouth lifts once he sees me looking.

"Whiny baby?" I reiterate confusedly. "Did something happen?"

She shrugs. "I dunno. Jazz said you two had a small quarrel or something? Since he came back last week he's been all bitchy and shit. He turns into an asshole when he's feeling guilty about something." She pulls back a little and pouts. "What happened with you two?"

"What did he tell you?"

"Nothing."

Riley and Jasper clearly know we're having a secret conversation. Both of their curiosities look piqued, their eyes trained on my mouth in an attempt to read my lips.

"You two had a misunderstanding, he said," Alice recalls slowly. "He never keeps secrets from me unless he's done something bad. So I was wondering what he did that was guilt-worthy." She pulls away completely and continues, "You don't have to tell me, though. I can just assume the worst."

It's kind of relieving that Jasper isn't a blabbermouth. He hadn't told Alice what had happened between the two of us.

"Okay," I tell her. "You do that."

She laughs at my response and dashes back over to her boyfriend. Riley gives me an acknowledging nod, then he and Alice link their fingers together and start heading into the building.

I fall in step with Jasper behind the couple.

"Hey," Jasper greets me, looking sincerely happy to see me. "I'm glad you came. I was worried I'd be stuck as a third wheel to these bozos."

"You couldn't be a third wheel," I disagree. He smiles shyly and holds an entrance door open for me. I slow my pace for a second to let him keep up.

"Alice was going to kick my ass if I didn't force you to come shopping with us," he says. "I hope you like being a bag carrier."

"I'm used to it," I laugh. "My ex..." I pause for a second to take in Jasper's reaction. "My ex-girlfriend was like that. I'd go shopping with her and end up holding all of her shit for hours."

"Bella?" he asks. Her name was probably mentioned in passing once, it's surprising that he remembers it. I confirm his suspicions, and he actually laughs a bit. "Yeah, my last ex was the same way. Twinky bastard loved to shop, so long as I paid and held everything for him."

Alice turns around to look at us. "Let's go here first," she suggests, pointing to a store. "I'm low on eyeshadow, and... Ooh, I bet they have cute earrings, too. Help me pick some out, Jazz."

"You ready for this?" Jasper asks me, chuckling. "Once Alice gets going, it's hard to shut her off."

"Shut up!"

"It's alright," I reply, trying to hold back my grin. Alice sighs and drags Riley into the store with her. Jasper and I follow a few steps behind.

The store is a girly overload. Earrings, makeup, purses and more line the shelves. Alice darts to the earrings immediately and Jasper trails after her, unfazed, as if he's used to it all.

Riley and I share a frightened look.

He doesn't bother browsing the store, but instead just crosses his arms and tries to keep some semblance of manliness in here. I shuffle over to one wall, poking and prodding at all of the accessories the store sells. The bright-colored, skimpy leg stockings entertain me for a while, as do the necklaces and bracelets. My own manliness was apparently left at the door.

A few minutes later, once I'd examined all of the charm bracelets, the store begins to bore me. I inch my way back over to Jazz and Alice in the earring section.

"How do these look?" she asks him, dangling a pair in front of him.

Jasper sighs, thinking. "Those are pretty. The light reflects nicely, and the blue would definitely bring out the color in your eyes... But the color! How many tops do you have that would match?"

"Uh, two? You know blue makes my skin look pasty."

"Waste of money, sweetie. Try again."

Laughter rises out of me, causing Jasper to turn around and look at me oddly.

"What's so funny?"

I attempt to stifle my chuckles and point to the earrings that Alice is holding. He glances back at them, then his expression sours once he realizes why I'm laughing. "Oh, shove it. This skill is from years of being best friends with a shopaholic woman, _not_ because I'm gay."

"I know, I know," I breathe, wiping away an imaginary tear. "That was just funny."

He narrows his eyes at me, but I can tell he's fighting back a smile. "Fuck off."

I back away and let him and Alice do their thing. It's amusing to watch him be such a doting friend to her, giving feedback on everything she considers purchasing.

Riley and I make small talk about how gorgeous the busty women in one of the makeup catalogs are. Just because we're in a makeup store doesn't mean we've lost our balls, or our need to feel excessively hetero while surrounded by glittery, pink things.

When Alice is done with this store, we obediently follow her to the next one. After hitting a few places, Alice unfortunately finds another makeup outlet, so Jazz and I opt out and enter a gothic store nearby. Black is infinitely better than sparkly girly shit. Jasper studies the multiple display cases of piercings while I look at pricey band shirts arranged along the walls.

I don't browse for long. A man and two women come to my aisle, laughing and chatting loudly. The man is blatantly gay, almost stereotypically so, with long skater-boy hair and tight, brightly-colored clothes. The two women flanking him seem to be friends of his.

I stare at him for a moment, comparing him to the only other gay man I'm familiar with, Jasper. They aren't at all alike—Jasper isn't loud, or flamboyant in his sexuality, and this man's frame is different from Jazz's. He's shorter, thinner, with clothes so tight you can practically see his body through them.

A hand touching my back spooks me. "See something you like?" Jasper asks, stepping close beside me.

The man reaches up onto the wall to grab something, stretching up so that his shirt lifts and his butt sticks out. I can't help it; I look at the subtle curves of his ass, too, just because I can.

"I don't know," I answer.

Do I find this man attractive? It doesn't seem so, since my body doesn't react to his, but I can tell that he's appealing in his own way. Just not in the right way for me.

Perhaps Jasper is one in a tiny percentile of men that can affect me, then. A percentile so small that I've never even met another man that could arouse me.

Suddenly, the gay man notices that I'm staring at his ass. He examines me thoughtfully, then winks and blows me a kiss. His two friends laugh.

Jasper's fingers at my back curl around to settle over my hip, pulling me closer to his side almost possessively. I turn my head to look at him questioningly, but instead of having a meaningful or even sheepish expression, Jasper only lifts an eyebrow at me, daring me to do something about it.

His eyes drift away from mine back to the trio, all playfulness erased from his face. Something they do makes his jaw tighten and his fingers tense on my hipbone. Pulling me closer so that my arm presses against his chest, he grazes his nose along the shell of my ear, his breath blowing warmly on my neck.

He's being _territorial_ over me.

Jasper must sense my confusion, because his hold suddenly loosens on my waist considerably. I cautiously pry his fingers off of me, then stumble away from him and enter a different aisle, wracking my brain for an explanation. I can't comprehend his actions at all.

Why would he be possessive? There was nothing strange about that man. He caught me checking him out and thought he'd be funny in front of his friends, that's all. There was no reason for Jazz to piss on my leg over it.

"Wait," Jasper pleads, staying on my heels. Anger sparks within me and I spin around to face him.

He hesitates warily. "He looked like he wanted to invite you to his bed or something," he finally explains in a whisper. "I thought—shit, like the carnival, remember? Like how you helped me? I just didn't want him eying you like you're some piece of meat."

"Oh, like no one's ever done that before," I pipe back. I don't know where my hostility comes from, but him protecting me from getting stared at lustily is kind of ironic. He'd never had a problem perving out on me before we'd met face-to-face. Exhaling quietly, I throw in a hurtful, "Hypocrite."

It's childish and insensitive to bring up our history now, but having Jasper claim me as his own pisses me off. Perhaps it was second nature to him, or his touch wasn't meant to be intimate. Regardless, I turn away and head to the checkout counter without him. A mere touch to the hips means so much, and we haven't gotten that far. Not in my head we haven't.

A few seconds is all it takes for Jasper to catch up with me. "Fuck, Edward, slow down. You're not buying anything?"

Despite intending to keep my eyes averted, I immediately make the mistake of looking up at him again. His once-chipper mood seems to be replaced with outright anger, but his eyes say much more than that.

_He turns into an asshole when he's feeling guilty about something, _as Alice had said.

Thanks to my words, Jasper's probably beating himself up internally again like he'd done last week. He'd gone a little too far with me last time, perhaps on accident, and now he's done it once again. I wasn't prepared for him to touch me like that at all.

I don't answer.

Jasper scowls and runs a hand through his hair rigidly while the cashier rings up and bags his purchases.

I must pick up a bit of his bitterness, because I'm kind of pissed off, too. Why is it my mistake if I reject his touch? He should know by now that I'm not ready to be his butt-buddy and take it up the ass. Even if that wasn't his intention, he's still pushing me. When I said I wanted to be his friend, I meant just that. Friendship. Not kissing or cuddling or giving me blowjobs.

Am I not being clear enough?

I don't want to toy with his head, I just want to get my own head sorted out. It was never my intention to tease him, but perhaps that's all I am. A tease.

I don't think I'm just imagining all these signs he's thrown out. He likes me more than platonically, and my refusal to reciprocate is fucking with him. That's the last thing I ever wanted to do and I can't stop doing it.

And on top of that, our arguments aren't helping anything.

I begrudgingly follow him out of the store, only to find Alice and Riley there waiting for us. Alice rushes over to Jazz and starts bouncing excitedly.

"Oh my God, Jazz. They just opened a store on the other side of the mall that sells the cutest little summer dresses, they're all on major discount because it's fa—"

"Oh _hell_ no," Jasper stops her, "no more shopping." He ducks down to scoop her up. He throws her over his shoulder, causing her to scream and laugh.

Her fists pound against his back, but he ignores them. His lips curl into an infectious smile as she starts throwing out curse words.

"You dick!"

"I dick a whole lot of things, baby," Jasper replies coolly. "Any of you guys feelin' hungry?"

All of us are silent for a couple seconds, too afraid to answer that. Alice is the first to break it, exclaiming, "No one wants your itty-bitty Vienna sausage, Jazz."

Jasper smirks and shakes his head. "I have a kielbasa, sweetie. And I didn't mean it like that." He gestures towards the mall's food court. "There's food to be had thataway."

"Okay, but first—look! We need pictures." She points to a nearby, small photo booth, then flails and knees Jasper in the ribcage. "Put me down, asshat."

Wincing, Jasper obliges and sets her back down on her feet. He looks at me inquisitively, but I glance away, already feeling like an giant asshole for being angry with him. He isn't a bad guy, and he didn't really do anything _wrong. _His actions from before just rubbed me the wrong way.

"Yeah, we can take pictures," he tells Alice.

Somehow, all four of us end up crammed into the minuscule photo booth. Alice perches herself right on Riley's lap, and because I sit down next to him, Jasper has to sit on _my_ lap. There was only room for two people to sit on the bench, and so Alice made us cram. Tightly.

Jasper cautiously crawls into the booth last, settling himself atop one of my thighs. He looks embarrassed, and I'm pretty sure I do, too. As Alice gets the machine set up, Jasper shifts so that he's sitting sideways. He sets one elbow behind my head and leans forward to whisper.

"I should've asked first. I'm sorry."

He's speaking of the territorial shit he pulled in the store. The warmth of his breath on my cheek and the way his lips move distracts me, though. He's so close.

With my anger gone, I mumble back, "I'm sorry, too. There was no reason for me to be mad."

He rests his head on my shoulder so I can no longer see his face. "I didn't..." he starts, but pauses to reword himself. "I didn't mean to impose. I knew you wouldn't want that guy hitting on you, so I thought maybe it'd be okay if I... prevented that. Don't be mad at me."

He seems to be so worried about that, as if I'd hold it against him. "I'm not mad."

"You're not just a good-looking piece of meat to me, even if you do look yummy," he says. I laugh, feeling somewhat embarrassed, and his low chuckles follow after. "No, I'm serious."

His body slumps against mine, his hand gently clutching my shirt as his head stays bowed at my shoulder. The way he sits has lifted his own shirt slightly, creating a minor gap between his belt and the bottom hem of his tee.

Without thinking, my arm reaches over his lap to pull his shirt back down. My fingers hesitate as they touch the exposed skin at his hip. From here I can see a small freckle marring the otherwise flawless skin there, and I rub my thumb over it, memorizing the tiny imperfection.

His intake of air lures my attention back to our conversation. I've already forgotten what I planned on saying in response.

"Edward," he whispers. "Have you drawn a line yet?"

"A line?" I echo, bemused. I have no idea what he's talking about. A line for what?

"Yeah." Jasper readjusts his position on my lap and pulls back a few inches, looking at my face again. His eyes have gained a worried, yet almost hopeful look. "You know, a line to..."

The white flash of the camera catches both of us off guard.

Jasper jerks away from me. "Hey!" he yells at Alice, "You could warn a fella. We weren't ready."

She just giggles, looking far too pleased with herself. "I so caught that tender, lovely moment on camera," she gloats. I suddenly realize how utterly intimate our position is, how close together our heads had been. "Aw, I think you're turning a little red in the cheeks there, Edward. Are you camera shy?"

A second picture snaps. I roll my eyes at her and face the camera, attempting to ignore how warm my cheeks have become. Jasper copies me, paying no mind to Alice's playful ribbing, and we both glare at the camera for the remainder of the pictures.

"One more round," Alice beseeches. Ignoring her, we both move to get out of the booth. "You guys are such party-poopers. God, it's not like I'm— Riley, sit your ass back down. You're not getting away so easily."

Jasper and I laugh. It's kind of hard not to feel sorry for the guy, Riley doesn't know what he's getting himself into. Alice is a sweet girl, of course, but she can also be a bit much at times.

The two of us sit down on the floor with our backs resting against the photo booth.

We people-watch for a few moments. The silence begins to worm its way between us, so I clear my throat and attempt to initiate conversation. "So, as you were saying. A line?" I prompt again.

Seriousness abruptly overwhelms his expression. Jasper cups his hands together in his lap and stares down at them, seeming reluctant to explain his words further. Even with his head hanging down and his hair in his face, I can see that his eyes still hold so much emotion, so many feelings I can't place. He isn't an over-thinker like I am, so the fact that his mind now holds him silent is saying something.

His mouth opens, then closes, unable to choose the right words.

Finally, "I have no idea what you want from me."

Oh.

I finally remember what he means by 'drawing a line' for him; I was told to make it obvious what I desire.

He offered me _anything_.

What that entails, of course, is an array of choices. Friendship is the first that comes to mind—we could continue to hang out occasionally as friends, nothing more and nothing less, smothering the torch he carries and burying my curiosity about the same sex. We would easily work together as friends.

Another option is _nothing_. We shouldn't have been friends in the first place. With so much distance between us, it'd be easy to turn away and never look back. But I don't think I could do that. Jasper's been a good enough friend so far, I couldn't leave him to wonder where he'd gone so wrong.

To clear my confusion of my sexuality, Jasper could be a test of sorts. He surely wants me in some way, so perhaps he could be an experiment. We could fuck each other, having no strings attached, and hope for the best. Maybe I'd actually enjoy gay sex.

And fourthly, we could be a couple.

"Just show me what you need from me," he begs. "To keep me from overstepping my bounds. I've made that mistake so many times with you and I don't want to do it again... So I've gotta know..."

I understand what he's asking. For a moment, I think about what he would want. If he's offering me _anything_, that would mean he'd want _everything_, right? Including option number four, a relationship.

Jasper wants to be my boyfriend.

The din of the mall seems quieted, all of the sounds around us seeming to echoing from some far away place. Jasper's head is tilted and facing toward me, his eyes curious but his face guarded as he waits with bated breath for my response.

As I sift through the good and bad of each possibility, Alice and Riley finally come out of the photo booth. She looks excited to tell us something, but when she senses the gravity our conversation, she suddenly decides against it. She instead just picks up our photo strips and converses quietly with her boyfriend.

The only problem is that I don't know what I want. Every option has its advantages and disadvantages, and I don't want to decide wrongly. Not when so much hangs in the balance.

"Let's go, boys," Alice finally says. "Weren't you hungry, Jazz?"

Even as I begin to rise to my feet, Jasper stays on the ground. His eyes follow me up, still waiting for me to voice my decision.

I hold out my hand to help him up. His hand tentatively slides into mine and I help lift him. It feels softer than I remember, with his palm all smooth and warm skin, and it's just as big as mine is.

Neither of us pull away.

I stare at our joined hands. This is what it'd be like to be his boyfriend, holding hands, cuddling, kissing... It wouldn't all be crude sex, and I'm sure Jasper wouldn't push me into doing something I didn't want to. I could see him being a good boyfriend.

Looking up, I see Jazz push his hair back with a hint of a smile settling on his lips. He doesn't remove his hand, but he does look kind of uncertain. My indecision is probably driving him crazy by now.

Alice and Riley know what's going on, but Alice makes him turn around and start walking ahead of us. Jasper picks up his purchases from the floor, keeping his one hand clasped with mine, and he waits.

"I'm just, um..." I fail at explaining.

"Take your time."

I tilt my hand slightly so my fingers are aligned with his, then push forward, twining our fingers together. The action is so familiar, yet so alien because it's with a man.

After a long moment, Jasper steps forward to follow our friends. I keep pace alongside him, silently marveling over the simplicity of hand-holding.

"Is this alright?" I ask him, unsure.

"More than," he encourages. His fingers squeeze mine gently.

The compulsion to be connected to him like this is weird, but we still don't pull apart. Touching him is somewhat calming, although my heartbeat feels as fast as a hummingbird's wings on crack.

Oddly, it feels good. I like it.

When we make it to the food court, it's actually ridiculously easy to decide what we want, as we have virtually the same taste in food. Alice wants us to get something _exotic_ with her, but we just decide on burgers and fries. Fuck exotic, we'd rather be fat asses.

Reluctantly, we have to release our hands to carry the trays to a table. Alice and Riley join us a few minutes later with their own food and stories to tell, but Jasper and I eat in companionable silence, reflecting on the bizarre shift in our friendship.

Does hand-holding make us a couple? It hadn't been spoken, and I don't feel like we're a couple, but this _is_ clearly beyond friendship. When Jasper finishes his burger, he lays one of his hands on my thigh. When I finish mine, we return to holding hands.

Like I said. It's weird.

The air becomes lighter between us, with less fretting and more expressing from us both. There's a contented look on his face, and a new, gentle twisting feeling in my stomach that's there for all the right reasons.

The most shocking? When I look for it, I can see he's more handsome than I'd ever given him credit for, with just the right blend of pretty and rugged. It's not that I never noticed, it's because I never truly paid attention to how attractive he is as a _man_. Every other time I'd tried to gauge his appeal, I compared him to women. He catches me looking a few times, but because he's not used to my eyes on him, he keeps turning away bashfully. It's cute.

Well, it was cute until he started punching me for staring at him. But that's a different matter.

It's so easy to look at him in this light once I've stopped questioning everything. He's a good friend, a _gay_ friend, and I know he'd be alright with me trying new things at my own pace.

The hand-holding was the limit I'd set for him. If I chose to take it further, he would let me.

I don't have long to dwell on this revelation, as everyone's finished eating and it's time to leave. Alice insists that only she and Riley use her car, so I'm given the task to drop Jasper off at his apartment. Alice says goodbye to each of us, patting my cheek and hugging me a little too tightly, and whispering secretive words in Jasper's ear that make him blush. Then he and I end up in my car, alone.

The drive home is largely silent. Most of our communication is through our fingertips, like Jasper running his fingers over veins on the underside of my arm, or my thumb tracing crescent moons on his palm. When I need both hands to drive, Jasper rests his hand on my leg again, already taken with the chance to touch me like this. I don't reject him this time around.

Still, the nagging part of my brain tells me that I'm not ready. I feel like if I let him get close now, I'd only reject him in the end. I can't imagine myself getting past third base with him—and oh, have I tried to imagine it.

When I think of the gay porn I viewed, I can't see myself doing those things. Holding his hand I can do, but having his penis _up my butt_?

At a red light, my gaze slides over to him, only to find him staring back at me. But we don't say anything. He only smirks, and I nervously glance away, afraid that he can read my perverted mind.

The rest of the drive to his home is quiet as well. As I pull into a parking space outside of the apartments, Jasper takes my hand in his again. His fingers squeeze mine as he leans over the console.

"Thank you for coming," he murmurs in my ear. He kisses my cheek, then pulls away and opens the passenger-side door. "Come again soon, okay? Have a good night."

Dazed, I return the sentiment. He exits and closes his door, then starts up the path to his apartment.

Kissing me is definitely breaching the more-than-just-friends line. As was holding hands.

Hand-holding is fine today, but what about tomorrow? I don't want to drag him along only to disappoint him in the end.

I know that I can kiss him, watch him touch himself, watch him touch me... but none of those come close to actually having sex with another man. If we did begin a relationship, what if I end up chickening out somewhere down the road? With my penchant for over-thinking, surely I would do just that.

I need to know if I could ever have gay sex, sooner rather than later, before hearts are broken. If gay porn couldn't fully arouse me, I'm not entirely sure having a man beneath or inside of me could either, even if that man was Jasper.

Before I begin anything genuine with him—as I know I likely will—I need to try this. And because Jasper is the only appealing gay man I know, well...

Without a second thought, I shut off the car. Jasper had paused outside of his door to watch me leave, and he raises his eyebrows in surprise when I actually get out of my car rather than depart.

Jasper backs himself up against the door as I stalk toward him. He doesn't move an inch as I place my forearms on either side of his head, pinning him to the wood. He doesn't even breathe as my nose touches his.

"That was fast," he says after a moment. He looks happy that I didn't leave.

I chuckle deeply, a rush of unexpected courage bolstering my actions. My gaze lingers on his mouth for several seconds too long before I lean forward just the slightest bit, brushing my lips to his. "Jasper," I mumble softly.

He seems preoccupied with tugging my belt loops closer and pursing his lips, readying himself for more kisses. "Hm?"

I let him pull me forward, until our fronts are aligned. Neither of us are hard yet, but I can feel him begin to swell, aroused by the smallest peck to the lips that promises there's more to come.

Rather than continuing to watch his expression, I kiss his jaw, then his neck. I keep my head there as my right hand trails lower to the front of his pants.

He gasps in shock as I grip him through the fabric.

"You said you'd give me anything?" I ask. My fingers tease over his growing length, not quite providing him with the friction he needs. He gasps again, but now for a different reason.

"Yes," he pants, his breath suddenly becoming labored. He impatiently bucks his hips once against my palm. "I'll take whatever I can get."

That is all the confirmation I need.

"Jasper," I whisper in his ear. "I want you to do something for me..."


	8. Chapter 8

Sounding utterly lost, Jasper croaks, "Am I dreaming? You're seriously propositioning me for _sex_?"

My head pulls back so I can look him in the eyes. I told him exactly what I want from him—a chance to test the proverbial waters, to see if I could perform for him sexually, since I wasn't so sure that I could. If gay porn didn't turn me on, laying with a man may not either. It'd be better if I knew this now, before...

It wasn't meant to sound like I want fuck his brains out for no reason, but apparently that's how he took it.

Crap.

My boosted courage abruptly failing me, I splutter, "Well, _yes_, but—"

"Why?" Jasper asks, awestruck. "You suddenly..." Pausing himself, he looks between us, as if viewing my actions in a whole new light. His hips shift away from my palm.

He visibly struggles to grasp the right words. "You want to experiment with me?"

'Experiment' sounds like the completely wrong word; it sounds heartless, uncaring, which isn't my reasoning at all. I only want to sleep with him so I know for certain that I wouldn't hurt him in the future—if he someday loves me, and I turn him away then, that would hurt him infinitely more than a failed attempt at sex now. We need to try this before I have a chance to break his heart.

Cautiously, I shrug-nod. "It wouldn't be an _experiment_, per se," I point out, knowing my argument sounds ridiculously weak. "More like a... test?"

Confusion streaks across his face. "Aren't those the same?"

"No." He looks at me dubiously, making a wave of panic wash through my bones. I hadn't really thought my plan through and didn't even consider that he may not even want to. But it isn't like I want to use his body as a test dummy, necessarily. I'm willing to do this for _him_, doesn't he see?

"I don't mean to use you, really, I just..." My fingers push back against him, silently wishing he would understand without me having to explain all of this aloud. Both of our eyes lower to the front of his jeans, where my fingers lay pressed to his bulge there.

He relaxes just a bit, still staring watchfully. "What do you want?" he asks. A hint of amusement shines through his features, and he demurely adds, "I know I'm asking that far too often, sorry."

He already knows that I want to attempt to have sex with him—there's no way he could have misunderstood that. Instead, his question is asking something else, something more.

"I need to know if..." _we could be together._ "...gay sex is right for me," I respond cowardly. Jasper looks as if he's finally beginning to understand, so I continue to semi-explain myself, somewhat stupidly. "I watched porn. Lots and lots of gay porn. But none of it really... _got me going_, you know? Some of it was kind of gross. Kind of. I don't know."

"Oh." He relaxes further. With a small, likely subconscious rub of his crotch against my hand, he asks, "What kind of porn did you watch?"

"All sorts," I admit, squeezing him. "Anal, mostly. What does it matter?"

His smile returns, but it seems to be more from amusement than happiness. His hand reaches up and touches my hair, brushing it back slightly, running his fingertips along my scalp. "Not all gay men have anal sex, you know," he explains softly. "Some think it's wrong. Too vulgar, or unnatural... I understand if that's the problem. You don't have to force yourself to like it."

I shake my head. "I don't think the vulgarity is what's wrong with this."

We both simultaneously look down to my hand again. Jasper's face twists as he comprehends my words. He drops his hand, reaches in front of himself and begins prying my fingers away from his erection.

Regretting my actions, I swiftly tug my hand away and blurt, "I'm sorry, I'm just being stupid—again—"

"Hold on," he scolds, dragging my hand back. He lifts my fingers a few inches and presses them firmly to his pants' button. "There we go."

We stare at each other for several seconds, me questioning, him acknowledging. Finally I realize he's giving me the go-ahead. I rub my thumb over the hard circle of metal, then gently, carefully unbutton his jeans. And he lets me.

I burrow my face into his shoulder and mouth a silent, "Thank you," against his neck. His head turns and his lips kiss my ear, his breath whooshing out audibly as I unzip and tuck my hand into his pants.

He manages to unlock his door with a key while I stroke his warm cock through the fabric of his boxers. We stumble inside almost drunkenly, ungracefully falling over one another. Neither of us laugh.

As soon as the door is closed, I pin him back up against the wood, making his keys clatter to the carpet. I'm not really sure what I'm doing—one hand lifts his shirt up while the other attempts to push his pants down. Jasper gets what I'm trying to do and begins taking his clothes off.

I follow suit and start stripping, watching him as we go. Thanks to his head start and superior dexterity, he's taking off his boxers by the time I manage to get my own pants down to my ankles. My shirt, pants, shoes and socks are all off once he's completely naked.

His cock is so hard, so pink, ready and raring to go. It appears that he's 'manscaped' again, the soft curls of light brown hair above his dick being virtually nonexistent now. It makes that part of his anatomy a little less intimidating to me, and really, a little more pretty.

If a penis can be called pretty, anyway.

Not at all bashful, he steps forward until he's right up against me. His fingers slip into the top of my boxers and he slides them around to my backside, smoothing his palms over the cheeks of my ass as he eases the fabric down. It's a bit startling to see him act so boldly.

"What all did you want to do tonight?" Jasper asks.

"I want a home run," I answer rather coyly, nose to nose with him. He nods once in understanding, then pushes my boxers down the rest of the way, making them slip down to the floor.

I step out of them, and immediately his hands are on my ass again, pulling me flush against him. His erection pushes against my stomach just as his fingers dig into the flesh of my ass. Lips graze over my neck, jaw and cheek, never staying in the same place, avoiding my lips altogether.

"I don't know what to do," I confess, pulling myself away slightly. My hands stay unused at my sides as his own rise up my back again. He likes constantly touching me, I decide.

"I'll bottom if you want me to, Edward." He stares me dead in the eyes again, giving me a look—a _serious_ look—but I don't know what it means, either. "Being on top is easy. It'll come naturally." His gaze lowers to my lips as if he's thinking about kissing me, but he doesn't. "You just worry about getting it in the hole, okay? Your aim is still shitty."

God, do I want to kiss him, too. Only he would make a crack at my aiming when we're about to 'do the deed'. Before I even have a chance, he cups one of my hands in his and guides me toward his room.

There isn't much to his apartment. The walls are off-white, mostly undecorated, though the furniture looks kind of worn. I've never said anything, and I don't judge, because it's just the sort of thing that I'd have if I were a single bachelor living on my own. It's a decent place for someone who's only twenty-one... says the man still living with his parents.

His bedroom isn't so small. It's good enough to easily fit a Queen-size bed into it, which is his target as he leads me to it. He lets go of my hand and crawls onto his mattress. His swaying little ass beckons me after him.

Tentatively, I follow after, kneeling on the bed behind him. It isn't as unbearably nerve-wracking knowing that _I'll_ be the one inside of _him_, rather than the other way around. Still, I'm kinda scared, unsure of what to do other than follow his lead. And his ass.

Remembering the necessities, Jazz reaches over to the side, getting his supplies from an open plastic container beneath his bed. A condom packet is tossed at me while he keeps a slim bottle of lubricant to himself.

I pick the wrapped condom off of his comforter and glance at Jasper's face nervously. He pays me no mind, instead drizzling some lube over a few of his fingers.

Finally I realize that I'm not entirely hard yet, between all of the fried nerves and staring at Jasper. My hand grips my shaft and I start pumping, hoping to God that I don't stay limp. That would ruin my fucking day, if not my week. Jasper readily props himself up on his knees and one hand, positioning himself for me and stroking his cock. I place myself between his legs.

All I can see is his hair, his back, his ass and his balls. His entire crotch and bottom seem to be completely hairless, as if he'd shaved it all lately; I don't want to assume that he did it for me, but I'm glad that he did.

As I look down at this newly seen part of his body, I can actually imagine myself fucking him with clarity. Holding his slim hips, sheathing myself inside from behind... It's still an unfamiliar thought, but I can really see it happening now. That's new.

Without warning, a glistening right hand appears between his legs where I can see it. His middle finger slides up, pausing as it reaches its destination, and slowly, so very _slowly_, begins to sink inside of him.

A low groan comes from by Jasper's pillows where his head is bowed down. His finger presses inside a couple inches, then out and back in again, just a little faster. He must curl it because he gasps sharply, his hips thrusting forward of their own accord. The wet lubrication clearly makes it easier, because his puckered hole looks so fucking _tight_, blatantly clamping down around that single finger.

And _damn_, does my dick get hard in a heartbeat. Watching Jasper finger himself is hot.

My own fingers fumble with getting the condom wrapper open. It's a brand of condom I've never used before, I notice. Half-paying attention to reading the ridiculous brand name, I accidentally drop it between Jasper's legs. He must be looking underneath himself because he laughs.

Huffing irately, I pick it back up and rip it open. I place it over the tip of my cock and begin to roll it down—but there's a major problem.

It's too fucking _small_.

The half-rolled down condom feels uncomfortably tight, squeezing the tip of my dick nearly to the point of pain. I clench my teeth together and try to bear through it, but I can't. I really fucking can't. Seriously, is this brand 'fun-sized'?

Reluctantly, I tug the condom off of me. If he doesn't have a bigger one that means we're not going to be having sex after all. I'm not familiar with—or comfortable enough—going bareback just yet.

"Do you have bigger condoms?" I ask, tossing the useless one beside him. Jasper glances at it.

"Sorry. Old habit, I guess. I'm not used to bottoming for—" he starts, but abruptly pauses himself.

My teeth clench again, but for a different reason. I don't want to think of the _smaller_ men who have been in this position before me.

Looking embarrassed, he shuts himself up and digs under the bed again. He pulls out a different brand this time, a golden one that I'm more familiar with.

Sighing in relief, I take the condom from him. My eyes rise up to his ass again, noticing that now he has gently fit two fingers inside, gradually stretching himself. It's something I hadn't really seen in the porn I watched before. Perhaps it's futile, though; if he's not accustomed to being with guys my size, maybe I'm not going to fit anyway.

Resolving to not think about that, I attempt to get the condom wrapper open, but this one's edges feel harder to grip and tear. I growl at it and try again.

And again.

And again.

"Edward," Jasper says, shifting to look at me.

I wave him off. "Hold on a sec. This one's wrapper must be defective."

He turns around completely and sits down on the bed, reaching out with his clean hand and grabbing both of mine and the condom. "Jesus Christ, Edward, your hands are shaking."

Are they? I didn't realize that I was shaking at all, but I don't care. It's not _that_ fucking hard to open a condom, and I've done it plenty of times before today. Plenty. Of course I have piss poor luck when it _actually fucking matters._

"Calm down," Jasper commands.

I give him a sharp look that says _I am calm_, but I can feel my adrenaline fueling me, making me want to tear that motherfucking condom wrapper a new one. Instead, I literally bite my tongue and let Jasper continue talking.

"Listen," he starts, "you really don't have to do this. I have no idea what inspired you to want to have sex with me today, but you don't have to. You shouldn't push yourself into this if you're not ready, and right now, you don't look ready."

My face feels hot as he touches my cheek with his left hand. "Whatever is going through that mind of yours, make sure it's what you want. Don't feel obligated to do anything with me. I'm just a friend... I mean, if you want me to be." Our eyes lock as his expression turns serious, but he quickly clears his throat and returns to the topic at hand. "What made you want to try this with me, Edward?"

Without a thought, I answer truthfully. "I didn't want to lead you on without knowing that I could do this."

He gapes at me. Slowly, his mouth eases closed, only to open again. "You wanted to have sex, to see if we're _compatible_?"

"Um. Yeah."

He considers that for a moment, chewing his lip indecisively. I try to not hold my breath for his response. Hopefully this doesn't change his mind.

I sit back on my ankles so there are a few more inches between us. His hand drops from my cheek and he stares at me, expressions flipping as if he were figuring out a tough math problem. My anxious fingers pick idly at his comforter, waiting for him.

Finally, a small, humble smile slowly turns up the corners of his mouth. I can't help but smile weakly back, feeling my tension getting whisked away by that one genial look of his.

"Geez," he drawls. It's obvious that my failed logic has confused him, but at least he looks curious. He begins getting off of the bed. "Alright, but we're playing by my rules, okay? You sit tight for a minute. I'll be right back."

After clapping me on the shoulder, Jasper leaves the room and enters his nearby bathroom. I obediently plop down on the bed and set the wrapped condom aside, then pick up the trash I'd created before. Fortunately he has a small wastebasket in his room that I toss it into.

After a couple minutes, the sound of running water comes from the bathroom. It sounds like Jasper's begun running bath water. Are we going to have sex in the shower?

He walks back in a moment later. My eyes narrow at him, his freshly wet hands, and his cock that is still as hard and exposed as ever.

"Come on," he croons. He holds a hand out to me and I hesitantly take it. It's wet because he's just washed his hands to clean the lube off, I'd guess. I let him lead me out of his room and into the bathroom.

The air is beginning to get steamy with the hot water pouring down into the tub. "I thought bathing would help mellow you out," he explains. "You looked so scared before. As if my ass would eat your dick or something," he jokes.

His weird sense of humor awakens my own. I shrug and gently jest, "Maybe it will."

"Mm." He runs his free hand through his hair, not bothering to add anything else to his response. The hand holding my own tightens slightly. Mine squeezes back.

As we wait for the bathtub to fill, Jasper leans against the sink and pulls me between his legs. Our hands release, and I put my arms on either side of his torso, resting my forearms on the counter. His hands splay out over my stomach, thumbs tracing slow-moving curves around my bellybutton.

Although it isn't much of an embrace, it feels more powerful than ones we'd had before. And it's not just because our bare cocks are touching.

The fact that he hasn't tried to kiss me since I told him I wanted to try this worries me. Does he think I'm really just 'experimenting' with him?

Set on proving that idea wrong, I lean forward and catch him off-guard, capturing his lips with my own. He makes a squeak of surprise, but he's quickly quieted as my tongue seeks out his.

He doesn't stay quiet for long.

A minute later, Jasper pushes me away urgently, as he'd forgotten about the running water. He manages to barely stop it before it gets too high. I grin and wipe my mouth, taking in the flush in Jazz's cheeks and the pearly bit of precum that's trailed its way down the head of his cock. Yeah, I did that.

"Stop looking so smug," he chides, waving a finger in my direction. I grab hold of his finger and step closer again, still intent on kissing all coherency out of him. He keeps me at an arm's length, however. "No distractions. Bath time first."

Despite my pout, he turns me so I face the tub. I reluctantly step in and lower myself into the warm water. He joins me just a few seconds later, seating himself in the tub _behind_ me. And this is supposed to make me calm?

It's a tight fit as he puts his legs on either side of me. I offer to give him more room, but he shushes me, keeping me close to him.

I can feel his privates touching my backside, but I can't scoot forward without him noticing. As if sensing my distress, he leans forward and wraps an arm around my stomach.

"You can lean back," he offers lightly. "You're not going to hurt me."

His hand on my abdomen presses inward, and I take the hint, leaning back onto him. His cock feels pinned beneath my back and his torso, but he doesn't seem to mind the pressure. After a dozen seconds of awkwardness, I allow myself to relax a little, resting my head back on his upper chest.

One of his hands entwines with mine over my belly. He kisses my hair and I smile, squeezing his hand again, because it's the easiest way for me to show affection back.

He shifts us slightly so we're deeper under the water, until most of my chest is covered. The water's just hot enough to be perfect without overheating either of us. With both of us halfway submerged, though, the water level has risen almost to the edge of the tub. Neither of us squirm to prevent it from spilling.

Instead of washing ourselves, Jasper just lies back with me in the water. I stare ahead at his bottle of shampoo and all the girly conditioners and body lotions that definitely must be Alice's.

His other hand dips into the water and massages over my upper body, getting the rest of my body wet. I melt against him as he rubs a particularly stiff muscle in my shoulder. My head turns so I can look at his face.

Jasper looks handsome and innocent all in one while he works his magic on my body. His gaze stays lowered, so I take the moment to actually look at him, memorize him. All of the features of his face are good-looking, including the expressiveness of his blue eyes, where I can almost see the shifting of his thoughts. And even though his pink lips are kind of thin—thinner than any girl's I'd ever kissed, at least—they suit him, and I still want to kiss him.

"Your semi just turned into a stiffy," Jasper murmurs. It takes me a few seconds to realize what he means, and what it was that he was looking at.

I look down at myself. Sure enough, my boner is hard as a rock again, protruding awkwardly out of the water like a pink beluga whale jumping out of the ocean. I roll my head back onto his shoulder and groan loudly, embarrassed that my body reacts so easily to a little ogling.

Jasper tenses for a few seconds at my groan. Once he relaxes, he begins speaking softly into my ear. "Don't feel bad. It's sexy, Edward. You don't know how relieved it makes me, knowing that I can turn you on. Knowing that you may not be completely straight gives me hope... even if it does make me a selfish asshole for pushing you."

I grunt, disagreeing with the way he views his actions, but I'm unwilling to actually get into a conversation over it. He's never pushed me. I wanted this one hundred percent. Attesting to that, I kiss him.

He sighs against my mouth and rubs more water over my chest, only this time he swipes his thumb across my nipple, not at all innocently. I wriggle in response to the sensation and he chuckles deeply. With a final kiss, we shift our faces apart, although we're still so close beneath the water.

"You don't even know how many times I've dreamed about being around you like this," he tells me. "I never thought I'd be able to kiss you, let alone..."

He stops talking for a moment, bringing a hand between us to push his erection to the side. It's been fully hard this entire time; he must be so aroused by the thought of what's to come tonight. I'm surprised by the sincerity in his voice, though, like he truly cherishes being around me. Even sitting with me in a goddamn bathtub, kissing me and playing with my nipples.

"What do _you_ want from _me_?" I repeat his words, before he can continue talking and making me feel so... _desired_. A shudder runs through me at that. I think I know exactly what it is he desires, and it isn't just my body, if the way he looks and acts around me is any indication.

"Tonight? I want you to fuck me," he says bluntly, playing dumb.

"And tomorrow?"

Jazz inhales abruptly. We stare at each other's eyes for a second before I swiftly look away, startled by the grimness I find there. "Don't let my feelings get in the way of your own, Edward. Focus on yourself and only yourself tonight."

I close my eyes and let myself sink a couple more inches into the water. Our hands stay together, though—I'm not letting go of him.

"I fear that's what I've been doing this entire time," I answer him a few beats too late.

He has nothing to say in response to that.

We both go silent again. The only sounds in the apartment are of our breathing, the small splashes of water when we move, and softly pattering rain from outside. Apparently a storm has reached us.

I curl onto my side after a couple minutes, laying my shoulder and head on Jasper's chest with my knees tucked mostly under the water. He readjusts his one-armed hold on my waist so I'm firmly settled on top of him.

"We're really just sitting in the tub," I muse randomly. I wiggle my toes in the water, noting that it has become a few degrees cooler than when we first got in. Still warm, though.

He tightens his grip. His mouth grazes over my hair and I hear his teeth snap together, as if chomping at me. I start to pull away playfully, but he doesn't let me. I flick a wet hand at his face and get a few drops of water on him. He ignores it.

"Just sitting," he finally sighs, sounding relaxed.

"I haven't had an actual bath in years," I add conversationally, "just showers." My nose burrows into the slight dip between his pectorals, and I resist the urge to feel more of the soft, hairless skin there. I never thought I'd enjoy the feel of a man's muscles like this, but I do. How strange.

"You should indulge more often."

His lips touch, once again, to my head. He presses a kiss, kiss, kiss to my hair, then more kisses on my hairline. I look up to see him peering back down at me with an emotion akin to adoration in his eyes. It makes me feel warm inside, and a little tingly because I know I like him, too. Even if it's been hard to admit.

"Is this calming you down at all?" he inquires, so softly that I'd hardly heard him.

"I was calm before," I tell him, although it's kind of a lie, and we both know it.

He clearly doesn't believe me. "Are you still nervous?"

Trying to gauge how nervous I am, I realize that in this water, I'm pretty calm with him. But I know that the moment I get out of the tub and behind that plump little ass of his, I'll probably be unsure again.

"I was only nervous about the sex part. You don't make me nervous, Jazz."

Gingerly, my hand pulls itself from Jasper's grip. I move my hand in front of me to grip something else.

Tuning out Jasper's inhale of surprise, I glide my fingers over the length of his erection, feeling how soft his skin is even in the water. His shaft still feels so hard beneath it, and I concentrate on touching, memorizing how it feels to hold a cock that isn't my own. My fingertip brushes around the rim of his head, then over the slit at the very tip, committing the feel of him to memory. I wonder how he would taste there.

Instead of finding out for myself, I let myself wonder, too shy and reserved to try such a thing right now. Maybe another day. After tonight.

On a less reserved note, the thought of fucking Jasper actually makes my cock begin to ache with anticipation. While I'd thought it might be difficult to have sex with a man, that isn't the case at all now. Not with Jasper. I feel more than prepared.

"I think I'm ready," I announce in a steady, albeit quiet, voice. And I am. I'm not nearly as nervous as I was, and the thought of Jasper lying nude beneath me is no longer frightening, but arousing. Even the feel of his dick in my hand has me turned on a little.

"You're sure?" he asks again. As if I'd change my mind instantaneously.

"_Yes!_" I laugh. "God, Jazz. Yes. Let's do this thing."

He presses his lips together in a smile. I begin getting out of the bath and he doesn't stop me, just leering contentedly as the water drips off of my body. I may or may not rub my hot bod a little to make him smirk again. Grabbing a towel that he'd set aside, I start stepping out of the tub.

Jasper pinches my butt. I swat his hand away and give him a warning glare, but he just laughs, not heeding it at all. As I dry off, Jasper steps out of the bath as well, unplugging the tub and then painstakingly drying himself while I take my turn eying his ass. His gaze slides over to me a few times, watching me watch him.

When he's finished, he tucks his towel around his waist.

"I hope you're ready for this," he says offhandedly as he walks out of the bathroom.

I wrap my towel around myself in a similar fashion and stay on his heels, following him into his bedroom. "Ready for what?"

"Ah." Jasper picks up the bottle of lubricant from his bed and gives it to me. He sets his hand on top of mine and brings himself closer, kissing me lightly, then chuckles darkly at my bewildered expression. "Ready to lube me up, Edward?"


	9. Chapter 9

As common sense will tell you, there's a certain semblance of clumsiness when one finally loses their virginity—an amateur's stumbling through uncharted territory, in other words, attempting to get the hang of something they've never done before. I never thought I would have to lose my V-Card twice, but here with Jazz, I feel like such a virgin again, ignorant and clumsy as ever, not knowing where to touch or what spots will make him feel good.

It's a pleasant feeling. Kind of.

With my lubricated fingers pressed against him, he gives me an excited smile, wrapping his arms up around my neck as I hover on my knees between his thighs. We're both nude.

"Go ahead," he encourages. His wriggling ass goads my hand into action. I obligingly press the pad of my middle finger against him _there_, feeling how soft he is, even on the outside of his body. The skin there feels peculiar; it's warm, delicate, smooth and yet... not smooth, at the same time.

The sight of his shaven body beneath me is sexy, even his muscles, his piercings, his tattoos, his... manhood. None of which I thought I'd find attractive in a lover. But I like seeing him beneath me like this, so willing and wanting. My cock throbs against my stomach at the sight.

I rub my finger over his hole, making him bite his lower lip and smile brightly for me again. Encouraged by his expressions, I keep my eyes on his as I finally move to enter him.

The first couple centimeters of my finger pushes inside of him a little, but it halts as I reach a barrier of sorts—a tight, tight muscle that grips around my digit. Jasper appears to brace himself and fasten his hold on me. Could this hurt?

"Show me how to do it," I suggest. After all, I've never done this before. I need guidance.

_Clearly__._

He relaxes quickly, surprised by my request for help. "I've already told you how," he parries, thoroughly amused already. He keeps one hand wrapped around the nape of my neck while his other hand covers my own between us. He squeezes, silently reassuring me with his touch and gaze. I blink at the familiar action, knitting my brow, but he just kisses me and nudges my finger inside again.

"One finger," he instructs. "Test the resistance. Make it lessen. You'll know when you can add another."

With a shallow nod, I let my lips linger against his as I press my finger back inside of him. His entire body twitches as I press against that reluctant muscle, but it yields slightly, scarcely letting my finger slip in further. Jasper's expression stays calm as I push deeper—his eyelids droop and he licks his lips (and mine), so I take that as a sign that I'm doing alright. Hopefully.

Soon my knuckle is against his body and he's still relaxed. My finger is completely encompassed by him. He's hot inside, strangely satiny-feeling, and still so tight... Intrigued, I wriggle my finger to feel more.

Jasper's head drops back onto the pillow. "Ungh," he groans, closing his eyes. But that's all he does.

Is that a sign that it feels good? I don't like his lack of verbal feedback, so my finger curls upward, trying to find the sensitive spot where he'd touched himself before. I'm not sure what I'm really looking for so I miss the mark. The action still causes his eyes to pop open.

The look he gives me in return is disbelieving. "Whoa. Slow down there, hotshot. One thing at a time."

"_Show __me_," I plead. "I want to make you feel good." _And __not __hurt __you__,_ I add mentally. He feels so fragile inside, so unlike the rest of his body. I'd like to avoid traumatizing him if I can.

He sighs and pulls me down by my neck. My head falls to the right of his so that his mouth is by my ear, my head at his shoulder. There's moisture at his collarbone, perhaps leftover water from our bath, or sweat... I flick my tongue against his skin and verify that it's water.

It elicits more sounds from Jazz. His skin feels surprisingly soft under my tongue, I can't help but lick at his throat, feeling emboldened by his lust. It takes me a moment to realize I'm practically lavishing his Adam's apple—a part that is so purely masculine, the sort of thing I hadn't even thought to appreciate until Jasper. Why doesn't any of this faze me anymore?

"You drive me so crazy," Jasper suddenly breathes. His hand on my neck slides into my hair, tugging lightly to make me look up.

He shoves his mouth against mine. Immediately disregarding my thoughts, I tilt my head to kiss him deeply and he reciprocates. Contrasting to his neediness, though, his tongue licks mine gently, almost playfully. I try to touch his tongue piercing in return but he pulls away before I'm able to.

He ignores my halfhearted glare, so I decide that his mouth has had enough attention for now and move down to his chin, his jaw, his throat, kissing all of that soft skin I never thought could be on a man. He squirms beneath me, laughing breathlessly, whispering my name to the room.

I had never paid attention to him like this. I had never paid attention to _his__ body_ like this. If I ignore his label of _male_, there's so much about him I think I could enjoy. His damned Adam's apple bobs as he swallows hard. The tiniest hint of scruff under my lips tickles, too short to irritate. Shifting my body even closer to his, I feel his dick against my stomach, precum leaking down the tip and rubbing on my belly. I nip at his collarbone and feel his firm ass flex against my hand in response.

I think I love his body. It's a strange notion, still so foreign, but it feels truer than anything else right now.

"I love—" Jasper begins to say, but I think my traveling mouth distracts him a bit because he finishes that sentence with the word, "_fuck_."

"I love fuck, too," I mumble mirthfully against his neck. My tongue drags down his chest, but I pause and tilt my head again, eying one cute, pink little nipple. Before I can move to lavish that, too, Jasper's fist tightens on my hair and he lifts up again, getting me to look at him.

When I raise my head, his fingers let go of my hair and he brings his hand around my neck, pulling me closer to his face, not even for kissing but just to _look_. Holding myself just two inches from him feels more intimate than this ordeal calls for, however. There's something in his face that's just... serious business.

Yet I know I shouldn't be hesitating and concentrating on every change in situation, every change in his expression. I should be fingering him right now, getting him ready for me.

"I love that you drive me crazy," he clarifies. His fingers on my neck slide around to my chest, and I realize with astonishment that we're both nearly heaving with each breath we take. And we've hardly gotten started yet.

"Maybe I like having the power," I reply cockily. I certify this by teasing my finger over his opening, reminding him that I have him pinned in a very vulnerable position.

"Power-hungry much?" he asks, but the roughness of his voice betrays him, showing me just how much he wants this. His back arches upward slightly, too, as if silently begging me to touch him. It's all I can do to oblige.

"Oh," Jasper gasps as I push my finger back inside. It's not as difficult the second time, but mostly because I know what to expect. Pulling out slightly, then pushing in, my finger slowly, slowly fucks him.

"Show me how," I firmly repeat once more. His mouth falls open in surprise, but he finally listens. With his hand on top of mine, he applies a light pressure against my finger so I enter him again, then he lessens the pressure to get me to pull it out. I follow his movement and gently thrust it in and out of him.

His breathing gradually becomes short, loud staccato. The tightness around my finger seems to barely lessen as I work him. He removes his hand after a moment, letting me do this on my own, and he instead clutches at my shoulder blades. My free hand slides under his arched spine to bring him closer to me.

"See? That's not so diffic—" he begins to laugh, but he's cut off as I rub my fingertip all along his anterior wall to locate that spot he likes, which must be deeper in than I'd realized. I _know_ I hit the fucking bull's eye this time. He chokes on his laughter and practically flails, his legs spreading even wider like I'd pushed the magic button. _That_ is what I wanted to see.

Playing with Jasper like this is startlingly erotic, my dick feels borderline painful. His own erection looks even more pained, though, the head turning purple with need and dripping a small amount of precum over himself. Messy boy.

"Why don't you touch yourself," I offer teasingly. He thrashes his head from side to side in a clear 'no fucking way', but his hand forgoes that order and grabs ahold of his cock anyway. It's amusing to see him start jacking off before I'm even inside him. He's getting one hell of a head start.

"Add another," Jasper pants huskily. He strokes himself fixedly and pushes himself back against my hand to make me hurry up.

Pleasingly surprised by his desperation, I withdraw my finger, then attempt to add a second at his request. His eyes are closed as I start, but his brow lowers as I push both inside, and he grimaces, as if it's almost painful. Hadn't he done this to himself not an hour ago? The only thing that keeps me from pausing is his breathing, each exhaled breath being so sharp and loud, like a silent moan. His face looks contorted with discomfort, but his body language says it's anything but that.

"Like this?" I ask meekly, craving his verbal reassurance. My two fingers can hardly wiggle unlike the single one had been able to. I pull them out and press back in, feeling how compact he is. "Fuck, that's tight."

"Yeah. Imagine being inside..." he murmurs breathily. "Imagine it's your cock."

That thought is vivid in my mind. I lean back, sliding my arm out from beneath him and lightly remove myself from his embrace. Looking down at my hand, I watch it move where my dick will soon be. "That's... wow," are the only words I'm able to compose at the moment. His ass clenches and squeezes my fingers. I can just imagine that ass clamping down like that around my cock, and it takes a fair bit of effort to not start touching myself, too.

Jasper's eyes reopen after a short while, but he continues stroking himself at a steady pace, studying my actions. A hint of my nervousness returns as he watches me, but not because I'm nervous about being with a man. No, I'm only nervous because I don't know what I'm doing.

"Try adding one more finger," he suggests suddenly.

"_Already__?_" My voice cracks in panic, as I focus on how resistant his body is, even with two fingers. It's better than it was before, but he's still tight. Even only three seems like a hell of a lot more than two.

Jasper simpers as I gawk at him. "You knew we'd have to get to this stage eventually." To further convey his point, he raises one arm above his head and stretches exaggeratedly, yawning. "And this is boring. I told you I wanted you to fuck me tonight, and I meant it."

All I can do is stare at him, floored. "You're... _bored_?" I question incredulously. I know he's only joking with me, but fucking hell, that hurts my ego. And I thought I was going at a moderate pace. "Fuck you!"

"Well, that's _the __idea_," he utters articulately, rolling his eyes at me. "Come on, fuck me. Get this show on the road already..."

He smirks a little as he speaks, so I know he's just provoking me to be funny. I huff indignantly. "You're an ass, you know that, right?"

"And you're the dick that will be fucking this ass," he shoots back with a wink.

I can't stop myself from snorting. Have his jokes always been so lame?

Taking his previous hint to hurry, I quickly thrust two fingers back inside him, catching him by surprise. His hand slams down onto the mattress. "Oh, shit," he gasps. I experimentally curl my fingers up, or twist them a little, or try to spread them apart—which doesn't work so well—and Jasper's breath stutters. He makes it seem so pleasantly sensitive, almost enough to make me want to try it. Almost.

After fingering him for a minute, I slow down to add the third finger, first checking to make sure it's still lubricated enough for this. Cautiously, I keep my digits close together and gently insert all three.

He curses quietly again, but this time for a different reason, and he grabs my wrist to make me still. I don't know how much this is hurting him, but noticing his wavering expressions, I keep my fingers inside to hopefully help him adjust to the intrusion. After a few moments he releases my wrist to let me continue.

Keeping an eye on him, I unhurriedly coax my fingers inside until my knuckles are situated against his skin. He expels a heavy breath, closing his eyes again and lying back against the mattress. I lean over and rest my weight on a palm beside him. "Are you okay?"

His eyes flutter open at my voice and he looks at me strangely, as if he'd forgotten I was here. "I'm fine," he answers gruffly. "It's just, uh... been a while."

I can believe that. It doesn't seem like bottoming is a frequent pastime for him.

His hips roll up against my hand and he makes a small sound of yearning, reminding me that I need to keep fingering him.

It takes a while, but eventually I manage to get his muscles relaxed enough for actual sex, according to him. After picking up Jasper's towel that he'd tossed aside, I wipe my hand clean of lubricant.

Jasper takes the condom wrapper from before our bath to tear it open. Apparently he's just as slick as I am with condoms because he has trouble figuring out which side actually touches the penis. My amused smirk fades as he rolls the condom onto my cock, though, giving it a few firm, unnecessary strokes to ensure maximum horniness.

He applies a little more lube to himself and to my condom-covered cock, squeezing my shaft again just because he's able to. He cleans off his hand as well, then finally, _finally_, he's ready.

His excitement is palpable, with a too-wide grin and clinging hands; I can almost see the desire radiating off of him. His hands—which now seem to be permanently attached to my body—find their way to my backside, startling me when his fingers slide awfully close to being between my cheeks. Only after groping me a little does he pull me closer, capturing both of our attentions as my tip touches him.

Holding my dick poised at his opening, I lay him down on the bed and meet his gaze. There's that... something... in his eyes still, like he wants something else from me, but I don't know what else I can do. I rub the head of my cock over his crack and kiss him soundly on the mouth, and his eyes close automatically.

Perhaps I'm just seeing things.

As his tongue slips into my mouth, Jasper's fingers grip my ass cheeks, urging me to enter him. I stop breathing for a sec to line myself up, then push forward slowly, feeling myself sink into him for the first time.

Fuck, he's tight. Tighter-than-a-virgin kind of tight. My dick's only halfway in when I feel his muscles clamp down involuntarily, making me hesitate for a few seconds before I feel him relax. His fingers dig against my skin again, and I push in the rest of the way until my thighs are pressed against his body.

It takes me a moment to realize that I'm buried to the hilt within another man, and there's... nothing wrong. There's no fear, no nervousness in this at all—my mind is simply blown by all the differences and similarities.

He's feels so hot inside, firm, yet also soft and... twitchy?

Jasper's eyes partially open and he shudders beneath me, a low moan rising from his throat. One of his hands finds its way between our bodies to continue where it had left off.

His ass is definitely twitchy, giving off occasional clenches and pulses as it adjusts to my cock. It's like a fucking massage parlor for my dick in there.

Jasper retracts from our kiss hesitantly, giving me time to process it all, I'd assume. I blink off my momentary stupor and pull back a little, then thrust back in a bit quicker.

Fuck, he feels nice.

I curl both arms under his shoulders, getting a better hold on him as I begin thrusting at a regular pace. Jasper turns away from my mouth completely to settle his face against my neck. His legs rise up a bit and wrap around me, helping me gain a slightly deeper angle.

"I feel so full," he pants against my throat. He's taking all of my cock. It feels so different inside than what I'm used to, but it's good. Holy fuck it's good.

Our closeness doesn't leave him much room to stroke himself, but he somehow manages. The backs of his fingers brush against my abdomen repeatedly, and my subconscious begins to time my thrusts with his down strokes. The dual stimulation seems to have a strong effect on him, because his heavy breathing turns into gasping, which then turns into whimpering.

At one particularly hard thrust, his muscles abruptly tense around me tightly, hampering my ability to move. Unable to keep my pace, I slow down to let him relax. But as soon as I try again he clamps down even harder.

"Stop clenching your ass," I mutter to him. It takes even longer for his muscles to loosen the second time.

He sighs loudly in a pissy sort of way. "I can't help it," he responds, his voice gravelly with arousal. "I'm not exactly _experienced_ with this sort of thing..."

The long silence that follows his words speaks the most.

I don't understand what he's saying. How the hell could he not be experienced with this? He's the one who had told me that both topping and bottoming is fun and pleasurable, and that he does both. He loves both. There's no way he _couldn__'__t_ have experience.

I pull back to look him in the face, hoping I'd heard him wrong. "You're not... what?"

Jasper swallows thickly. The look he has is contrite, his guilty eyes cast down away from my own. "I don't bottom," he says. His admission stuns me completely—especially because my entire dick is currently located _inside__ of __his__ motherfucking __ass_. "Well, I've bottomed before, but not often."

My heart plummets as I try to wrap my head around that. If he doesn't like to be on the receiving end, I can't imagine why he had offered his ass on a silver platter so willingly. "Then how many times have you...?"

"Only a couple times."

He's new to bottoming then. New enough, at least, to not be fully capable of controlling how relaxed he is while someone's inside him. I shake my head, still unable to completely understand his intentions, and begin to pull out.

My dick feels like it's going to sob. _I__ know__, __Beast__. __I__ loved__ his__ sweet__ ass __too__._

"Let me be on top now," Jasper commands, rising up with me.

My eyes practically pop out of my head. _"__What__?"_ I holler. He's gotta be fucking joking, right? I don't think I'm ready to have his dick crammed up my tiny virginal butt. Scratch that, I _know_ I'm not ready. My ass begins to batten down the hatches at the thought.

"No, no! I mean, you lay down and let me be on top. I'm not..." Jasper growls and rubs a hand over his face in frustration. "I worded that poorly. My dick is going nowhere near your ass tonight. It'll just be easier if I sit on top of you, I think."

Oh.

Well that sounds a hundred times better.

With my relieved consent, Jasper slides out from beneath me and I take his place in the center of the bed, propping up some pillows so I can sit up a little bit. He straddles me once I'm settled, rubbing his ass along my dick just to tease me. I slap his thigh to get him to lift up, and when he does, reaching beneath himself to align us, I slide my hands to his hips and slowly guide him down onto my cock.

He groans as I begin to fill him up, and I can't resist the urge to do the same. The warmth is immediate, the tightness and firmness just fucking sublime. He presses both hands to my chest and raises his ass up, then sinks back down until he's sitting against my hips.

It takes a moment for him to set his speed, but then he steadily rocks himself on top of me, mouth open and eyes closed as he concentrates on riding my dick. He doesn't seem to clench his muscles too tightly this way, thankfully.

My hands gripping his hips don't really aid him much—he seems to have enough stamina to bounce on top of me on his own. His cock bobs between us, swollen and dripping and utterly unattended. I take one hand and wrap it around him, stroking him firmly in time with his bouncing.

To make things easier, my other hand leaves his hip to grab the lube. I pour a little on his dick and then return to stroking him. He whimpers in approval and rides me harder, grinding down onto me every so often.

I learn to keep my fist stationary just above his cock, making him thrust into it and thus rise up off of me, then sink down to pull out again. Just the feel of him sliding up and down around me is enough to make my balls tingle, making me close to cumming, even so soon. I try to stave it off by focusing on the less significant—the way he licks his lips and arches his back needfully, or the way his sac pulls up against his body, signaling his impending orgasm.

And his face—God, his face is so expressive. He looks like he's in ecstasy, his eyes rolling to the back of his head, brow pulled together, slack-jawed and flushed pink in the cheeks. He leans his body back slightly and the new angle must feel even better, because his legs start shaking and he seems to forget how to breathe.

"Does it feel good?" I inquire, amused and completely aroused by his reactions.

His eyes reopen and he smiles a small smile, looking slightly embarrassed to be watched so intimately. His words, however, are not at all demure.

"Shit yes," he answers candidly, lifting up until I almost slip out, then dropping back down onto me. His muscles clench at the impact, but the huggy-grippy-squeezy feeling is so fucking good around my cock that it makes me moan.

"I'd bottom for you any day," he continues, now tantalizingly rolling his hips back and forth with my cock still inside. I jerk his dick a little faster at this and help thrust up into him, and he hums his appreciation. Jasper squeezes around me again, but this time it seems voluntary. He winks and rubs his hands over my chest. "You're converting me, Edward."

It's a great relief to know that he isn't completely opposed against being the receiver in this situation. He seems to enjoy it, even with his 'lack of experience'. I didn't know it could be so extremely sensitive and pleasurable for the bottom—Jasper had claimed it to be so, but seeing it with my own eyes makes me want to try it, or at least try something similar.

The thought of Jasper fingering me comes to mind. It makes me even hornier, and excited to be able to try such a thing now. I'm sure Jasper would have no objections touching me _there_.

"I think I might want to try bottoming," I tell him as I pump his cock, giddy to discover that I'm not afraid of moving forward. His reaction to the news is a little surprising, though.

Digging his nails into my skin, Jasper curses and his ass tenses around me. Almost immediately, hot liquid begins to squirt onto my hand and stomach, and I'm startled to find that he's cumming—cumming so hard that he shoves my hand off of him to finish himself.

He cries out and strokes his cock rapidly, spraying spurts of white cum all over my belly. I'm too stunned to move. Plus, his inner muscles seem to go into freak-out spasm mode when he cums, hell if I'm moving away from that. I want my dick to stay in that heavenly slice of paradise forever.

After giving my bellybutton its own facial, Jasper squeezes out a final drop of cum and rubs the head of his dick on my stomach. "Oh fuck," he wheezes. His hand that's still on my chest moves up to my cheek and he leans forward to stare at me seriously, but his breathlessness and 'I just jizzed' face ruins his stern demeanor. "Don't say shit like that to me."

He kisses me then, ducking down and taking my bottom lip between his own. His lips are soft, moist, welcome. I turn my head to deepen it and he kisses me languidly, more lazily now that he's been sated.

His hips start shifting again with long, deliberate movements. I can feel that I'm close to my own orgasm; the tingling spreads throughout my body and I can feel it rising within me. The slow pace he uses is maddening, but feels so great anyway that I don't dare complain about it.

After a couple minutes of him leisurely riding my cock, he grinds himself onto me one last time before I cum quietly, thrusting shallowly into him, his mouth muffling my moans. My toes curl into the bed sheet and my brain turns to mush and he kisses me even harder, moaning along with me for no reason at all.

He stays there until I begin to come down from my high, then he peppers kisses to my face and neck. I run a hand over his sweaty body, feeling all of his firm muscles and lack of curves that are nothing like what I knew before him. His hard-on has returned, as well, but I don't think I could go for another round.

His cum is cooling on my stomach and my dick starts to soften inside of him. Reluctantly, he pulls away, and I hold onto the condom as he lifts himself off. The difference in temperature is stark. I miss his heat immediately.

I take off the condom and tie it, not wanting it to spill once I discard it, and toss it into his trash bin.

To wipe myself down, he gives me a towel leftover from our bath, using a different one to wipe himself clean of sweat and lube. I wipe most of the sticky mess off of my stomach, but it leaves a residue; I get up to head to his bathroom and clean it off with something else. Jasper stands up with me and slinks off into the other rooms, only to return with my boxers and his own.

It's really fucking difficult to put clothes on while carrying a jizz-covered towel. He begins to laugh at my struggling, so I shuffle into his bathroom, glaring at him once before closing the door behind me. I ball up the towel and set it on his counter, then pull up my boxers the rest of the way. Scouring through his medicine cabinet, I find a washcloth on one of the lower shelves and use that to scrub off the rest of it. A little warm water works wonders.

The mere thought of fucking me had made him cum without warning—I don't know why that's surprising. He's attracted to me, and he's used to being on top. Of course it's the sort of thing that turns him on.

"Hey, Edward? I'll, uh, be in the living room," Jasper calls through the door.

"'Kay," I respond absently, giving myself a once-over to make sure he didn't magically give me a pearl necklace with his jizz or something. But I don't know what else to say when I don't hear him shift away from the door. Unsure on what to add, I settle for a softer, "Thank you, Jazz."

He sighs quietly and moves along.

It's hard not to wonder what's going through his head right now. Did he want to cuddle again, ignoring the icky stickiness on my belly? Hopefully I hadn't disappointed him by leaving his side so soon. Two minutes in the bathroom is nothing, though.

When I'm finished cleaning myself up, I follow the trail of clothing we'd scattered across his apartment to the living room. In only his boxers, Jasper stands at a window and peers out onto the street, the string for the window's blinds held in his hand. He's watching the rain intently.

Perhaps he wants to go play in it again. I wouldn't be surprised by _that_.

I stealthily approach him from behind, but he notices my presence regardless. "It's raining pretty hard," he mentions without glancing back. I saunter up behind him and look over his shoulder. The weather isn't bad—a modest storm, perhaps, not hard rain, but I don't correct him. Instead, I rest my head on his shoulder and slide an arm around his waist, gently pulling him back against me. His eyes widen and he peeks at me furtively.

"Looks... dangerous," he speaks again. Another lie.

This time I don't stay silent. I nuzzle my nose into the soft hair by his neck, then pull it back with my fingers and kiss that spot. "Mm. No it doesn't," I mumble against him. I like the smell of him here—no synthetic scents, just skin. It's not something I'm used to.

Jasper ignores my statement. "Stay with me," he requests, tilting his head to give me more room. I pause to think of something to reply with, but he speaks first, elaborating on what he meant. "Stay the night here, I mean. I don't want you going out into such a hazardous storm."

I know he isn't worried about the weather—light rainstorms like this are ridiculously frequent in Washington. He only wants to spend the rest of the night with me.

And I'm quite alright with that.

I play along, kissing his neck and whispering, "Of course."


	10. Chapter 10

During the night I awaken to a cold wetness on my cheek. My eyes crack open and I habitually swipe a hand over the corner of my mouth, then my cheek and throat, realizing that I'd drooled all over my pillow once again. It happens, rarely... which is still too often.

Only when I move to flip the too-soft pillow over do I begin to remember that this isn't _my_ pillow that's soaked in saliva. This isn't my bed or room, but Jasper's. He doesn't make a sound as I jostle him, but the positioning of the rest of his body is enough to make me freeze once I realize he's beside me.

I blink half a dozen times to jump start my brain, to make sure this isn't a dream. The darkness of his room feels very dream-like. But no, it isn't any such thing, and Jasper is very much curled around my backside with his arm around my waist and his knees pressed against the backs of my own. Our skin is sweaty where we meet, as if we've been locked in this position for some time.

Most importantly, his second boner that we'd never taken care of has returned, making itself at home between the cheeks of my ass.

I've never been more thankful for underwear until now.

Unwilled panic spikes within me, but I'm too stunned to move. Fleeting images from the day before assault me: loaded glances, hand-holding, intimate touches, his lips, his dick, his ass... His face as he confessed to being a top and how hard he came when I said I'd bottom for him.

I've woken up beside this man before, but it feels like I will never get used to it. Girls I'd fucked hardly ever actually _slept_ with me afterward, and those who did never once curled up behind me like this. My butt's virtue had never been threatened before. But oh, does it feel threatened now.

One more centimeter and his dick would be _inside my ass_.

I'm paralyzed by the thought of it. The feel of _him_. Imagining myself doing what Jasper had done just several hours before is enough to make me feel sick to my stomach, with the _lube_, and the _fingers_, and the _stretching_... The stretching!

Why had I ever agreed to bottoming? It must have been spur-of-the-moment, brainless, mid-coitus babble. Topping had been quite alright, I suppose, but having... _that _inside of me? It suddenly seems so daunting. Nauseating, even.

The rigidness of his arousal presses persistently against me through our boxers, although Jasper's still deeply asleep. The solid weight of his arm on my side seems to be pulling me back, as if he'd wrapped himself around me with the full intention of leaving no space between us. If so, he succeeded.

I can't remember letting him get this close as we slept. Jasper had coaxed me to join him in bed when I'd offered to just crash on his couch, and what with him being Jasper, I couldn't deny him. We didn't touch after crawling under the covers together, but I chaffed him because he had tried to stay awake the longest, his tired eyes peeled open to watch me fall asleep first.

A weirdo, I'd jokingly called him.

It's disconcerting to consider how easily I'd fallen into bed with the man, in more ways than one, when just earlier in the day I'd wanted him to leave me alone. Since the very beginning, since the first sentence he'd typed online all those months ago, I've been uncharacteristically drawn to him, more so than any other man. More so than any woman... I once compared this overwhelming attraction to the devilish allure of a siren's song.

What is he doing to enchant me like this? I feel like a lowly house fly trapped in a spider's web.

But then I think about what landed me here, and it's always been me. Our first meeting, our first kiss, our first mutual orgasms and our first shot at sex, it had all been initiated solely by myself. I can't point a finger at him because there is nothing to blame him for.

He hasn't trapped me here.

Rather than flip the pillow like I usually would, I lay my cheek against a drier spot, closer to Jasper's head, even though getting closer is one of the last things I want right now.

I'm angry.

At him.

At myself.

With a sigh, Jasper clutches my abdomen tighter, fruitlessly tugging me against him. His dick shoves harder against my ass, and it feels uncomfortable, like he's trying to break skin with his cock and it's not working. I get the impulse to wake him up and sneer something hateful, anything to get him to turn away from me for the rest of the night. That would likely send the message well enough.

His soft breathing between my shoulder blades is barely enough to seal my lips for the next ten seconds. I shift my hips forward anyway, trying to inch apart. Having none of that, Jasper unconsciously pulls me back, and—

_Oh._

There's something about the pressure that's...

It's...

The tip of his dick shoves _right there_, and although there are two layers of fabric in the way, it still feels... sensitive. Too sensitive. A blunt, pinpoint pressure like this has never touched that spot. I shudder a little and push him away, trying not to think about the unknown.

He's resistant to my efforts, trying to hug me closer with sluggish movements while I shove us apart with an elbow. How the hell is he still asleep?

"Jazz," I whisper impatiently. His throat makes an odd noise, but his slow breathing doesn't change.

"Jasper, wake the fuck up," I groan, elbowing him harder in the ribs. That forceful impact must finally get through to him, because he makes another sleepy sound, one that sounds like a garbled, unintelligible question. "Back up a little bit."

It takes him a few seconds to understand. "Oh," he eventually exhales, partially rolling onto his back. The sweaty skin where he'd been pressed suddenly goes chill as it hits the frigid air. Jasper, who'd felt too hot to the touch, kicks the comforter all the way down to our feet, only making me feel that much colder. Dick.

I shiver a little and roll my face down into a warmish part of the pillow, fully prepared to wait for him to pass out again.

_If I pull the blanket back up when he's asleep, he'll never know._

But I don't get the chance. His breathing becomes quieter, less deep, so I know he's probably awake still. I can hear him lick his lips and roll his head to the side. I imagine he's looking at me through the darkness.

Unmoving, I breathe in, deep and slow, but it's not enough to lull me back into slumber. A couple minutes of pseudo-sleeping later, Jasper seems to realize his error. He sits up and brings the comforter back over me partway.

"Sorry," he whispers, seemingly to no one.

Jasper must see through my guise, or he talks to sleeping people. After pulling it back up to my shoulder, he lies down on his side again, too far away to curl around me.

My bitterness wanes as I focus on him again. He's too gentle, apologizing even when I'm 'asleep'. Someone that fucking... _considerate_ doesn't deserve anger for things as mundane as unconscious cuddling.

I know he didn't mean to provoke me.

Fuck. I'm a bastard.

Why am I angry in the first place? Not because he'd done anything perverse. The only answer that pops into my head is _because you're afraid of him_, but I shake the thought off; he isn't someone to be afraid of. Jasper isn't scary. He isn't intimidating. It's only the tiny part about him being a man that can get me shaking in my boots.

And even with that, sometimes I don't feel so scared about it.

It's this flaky blend of emotions that makes me wonder if I'll ever turn my back on him. I'm in his bed tonight because I wanted to be, but taking such a large leap is somewhat counterproductive, isn't it? Bitterness isn't an emotion I expected to feel after sleeping with him. Maybe I wasn't ready, after all...

His fingertip touches my spine, startling me from my thoughts and almost making me fly up out of the bed. Jasper gasps as well, probably surprised at my being conscious.

"Why does my chest hurt?" he groans exaggeratedly, trailing his finger around a few of my vertebrae.

_Because your crotch was too close to my Danger Zone. I had to defend myself._

I don't give him an answer. I do, however, turn myself over to face him—pointless, of course, because the room is as dark as pitch. It isn't as if we can see one another.

His finger that had been on my back slides to my shoulder, then to the elbow that I'd shoved him with. It feels accusatory.

"Why do you like touching me so much?" I ask him rather than answer. My fingers attempt to furtively shoo his away from my arm, but he weaves our fingers together instead. I open my mouth to say something—but I'm struck silent by the warmth of his hand, and close it.

"Well, who wouldn't like touching you?"

Moving closer, he lets me go and pulls himself under the covers, then braces his hand on my other side, reaching over top of me. A knee presses between mine. Before I know it, he's looming over me, his body held just an inch or so above my own.

Then he's moving again, clicking a table lamp on beside my head. The dim yellow light suddenly illuminates him—with squinting eyes focused on the light, he's shirtless, with a sliver of pink tongue exposed as he presses his piercing into his upper lip. His blond hair is thoroughly disheveled as if he's been restless all night, although I know he hasn't been.

And then his eyes are on me.

And then he tries to kiss me.

And I'm not sure why, but the impulse to turn away is too strong. I look at a wall as his lips touch my jaw rather than his intended target.

And I feel like such an ass again.

"Jasp..." I begin to mumble, embarrassed by my own actions.

Warily, I shift my attention back to watch his eyes as he looks impassively at the spot he'd kissed, then at the spot he'd missed. The connecting dots are visible through his gaze, but he doesn't react, other than drawing his eyebrows together in confusion or perhaps frustration.

Then, looking resolved, he lowers his head and kisses my face.

"I'm trying to savor this, while I can," he whispers against my skin, like it's a secret only I can know.

The undertone of desperation in his voice stabs at me. The careful presses of lips over my cheek feel like wrecking balls slamming into the wall I'd tried to erect between us.

I'm not sure where his words are coming from, until I recall the last thing I'd asked. _Why do you like touching me so much?_

"I had a dream where you ran away from me," he says. Another answer.

His foreshadowing words send chills up my spine. How long ago was it that I was pissed off at him, for no real reason? How long ago was I absolutely disgusted at the feel of him behind me?

With that particular array of thoughts, running away from all other feelings would be simple for me. I wonder if Jasper notices each time I pull away, if he's ever felt all the things that I've felt, or if transitioning was nearly effortless for him. I can't imagine it was.

"Am I that predictable?"

The words slip out of my mouth before I consider how he'd interpret them. I feel like I'm the type to run, though—I've never fled from a stressful relationship before, but with Jasper it's different. Everything is.

He remains stationary above me as his eyes lift up to meet my own. Just as quickly as he'd looked, Jasper glances away from my eyes, skimming them over my face and then down between us as if we were meeting for the first time.

"Don't..." he begins to speak. A shaky inhale cuts off his words and he retreats, sitting up several inches apart from my side. "Don't run from me."

Too focused on the sudden distance, I shift to look at the white bed sheet between us, the way his fingers grasp the blanket to lower it again, the way his revealed abdomen moves as he breathes. The many questions in my brain suddenly peter out, and my head feels strangely hollow, devoid of everything but his words.

Those are anything but hollow.

_Don't run from me._

"Edward," he begs.

Looking back to his face, I shake my head and offer him the words on the tip of my tongue. "I won't."

I won't let myself be that weak.

"Tell me if I go too far, Edward. With anything."

It occurs to me that he truly thinks he's pushing me, forcing me into doing things I don't want to do. I can't recall any situation where that was true. I was a willing participant in everything we've done together so far.

There's only one thing I can think of that I don't like, and even then, it's probably just as endearing as it is a flaw.

"You cling a lot," I offer, but I immediately feel like a dipshit for bringing the negligible topic up at all. "I mean, I'm just not used to it... Even with girls, I didn't really... I'm not the kind to..."

How can I explain it? The words begin to fall off my tongue, but they feel like overt lies. I've done that sort of thing with girls before and it never felt wrong.

But with Jasper lying behind me like that...

"Sorry." He runs a hand into his hair and tugs it almost angrily. "I can fix it though, I promise."

_Fix it_. That isn't what we need, is it? We should be working together to find common ground, not hammering out his every last flaw. He shouldn't have to mold himself into an absolutely perfect being just to fit my preferences. That's out of the question.

"You shouldn't have to fucking _fix_ it," I complain, irritated.

"Let me," he requests quietly. He hangs his head, clenching some hair in his fist again. His arm blocks his eyes from my sight so I can't read his face. "Give me..." he begins to say, but his voice suddenly sounds different. "Just... give me the chance, Edward..."

A tear drops off the tip of his nose, and I'm completely blindsided by it.

He's... Why the hell is he _crying?_

As far as I can remember, he's the only other grown man I've seen shed tears, so my being the sole reason for his tears is utterly baffling. What the fuck am I supposed to do to make him stop? I'm unarmed in this situation—totally, totally fucking unprepared for this. Tears are my Achilles' heel.

He's crying, for Pete's sake! _Crying!_

"Hey," I gently try to coax him to look at me, but I'm caught off-guard again when he promptly does as I ask, staring sidelong at me.

I stare back.

He's silent as he wipes at his face, but the tears keep coming.

_Fuck._ I know it's my cue to soothe him somehow, but I can't think of what to do. I'm not the type of romantic to wipe away tears or anything, and frankly, his tears fucking scare me. Manly tears are unnatural—or, at least, that's what has been ingrained into my head since I was a toddler. I've believed it thus far.

"Jazz," I attempt to coax again, this time doing the first action that comes to mind. I sit up and wrap an arm around his shoulders, pulling him closer. He falls easily against me, laying his chin on my shoulder and anchoring himself to me with his arms.

Jasper simmers down immediately. I can feel his older tears on my bare shoulder getting colder, but I ignore them, automatically wrapping my other arm around his back when Jasper squeezes my waist.

When I figure he's done with the tears, I kiss his temple.

I realize this two seconds after I've done it.

"I thought you said you didn't like this sort of thing," he whispers into my ear, tightening his hold on my waist again.

And he's right. Just a few minutes ago, I told him I didn't like being touchy like this—I'm not really the type of guy for embracing. But it doesn't feel so wrong if I'm the one cradling him... When he was spooning behind me, that was far outside of my comfort zone. I didn't like it.

"It's okay, sometimes..." I try to explain, but I don't understand it myself. Maybe I just need more time to adjust... "I'm new to this," I continue to tell him, feeling a little flustered by my own actions. "Bear with me, please?"

"Of course."

A minute goes by and then we crawl back under the covers. He wipes his face with a tissue from beside his bed, then slyly loiters over me when he moves to throw it away.

When his knee presses between mine, this time my eyes stay glued to different parts of him—his nipples, his collarbone, his throat. His pink, pursed lips that would look great wrapped around a certain something of mine.

That thought makes me harden a little. Jasper moves to lie down before he has time to notice.

He's on his side, facing me, while I lie on my back and stare up at his ceiling apathetically. A wisp of a finger ghosts over my belly, apparently trying to get my abdomen to clench. He grins every time it happens. The teasing touches make me harden further—I'm now tenting his blanket—but he deliberately ignores that.

It isn't so bad, being with him like this. My insecurities don't pose much of a problem when I'm next to him in this manner. It was only when he was behind me and aroused that made me feel so uneasy.

Is that a top's sort of behavior? I've been wondering about the roles in a male-male relationship, how one would behave in such a thing... One bottom, one top, right? By now I know that some couples switch roles, but... I feel somewhat uncomfortable with the thought of bottoming now. I definitely felt uncomfortable being emasculated, being the 'little spoon', even just for a moment.

Jasper has already admitted that he's essentially a top, so he wouldn't mind satisfying my curiosity if I want to try bottoming. But if my earlier behavior is any indication, I may not like bottoming at all. So I'd have to be a top, too.

He said he would bottom if that was my wish, but it'd still be pushing him out of his own comfort zone, and I couldn't ask that of him.

Two tops wouldn't work, and that worries me a bit.

"So you never bottom?" I ask, catching Jasper's hand before he makes my stomach clench for the tenth time. He looks surprised by my out-of-the-blue question.

"The couple guys I've been with preferred to bottom, so I just took on the role as a top," he hedges. It sounds as if he isn't telling me the whole truth, so I cock an eyebrow at him. He huffs and pulls his hand out from under mine. "I prefer being on top, yes. But that doesn't mean I'm not open-minded."

I frown a little. His words feel sugar-coated.

"Sexy little twinks like you are my kryptonite, though," he adds lightheartedly. "I'd have no problem bottoming for you, if..." One of his fingers abruptly slides over my boxers and up the length of my cock, disappearing right before reaching the tip. "If you'd like to top for me, anyway?"

Oh, he's a tease. I hold back the growl in my throat and grab for his hand, this time imprisoning it within my own. "I liked topping today," I reply, pausing for a moment to remember what it felt like. "One question, though—what the hell is a _'twink'_?"

He laughs at me. Hard.

My smile dies and I glare at him with one hundred percent seriousness. I'm not sure if he's insulting me or not.

I think he is.

"Oh, Edward," he sighs, resting his head against my shoulder. "You have so much to learn."

* * *

Jasper gives me a week for reflecting.

He doesn't say this, of course, but that is what I label it. We don't talk very much for a full seven days afterward, other than the occasional text message, or one small five-minute phone call before he heads off to work. It feels like he's avoiding me.

His work schedule may be his excuse to leave me alone for a while. To let me process everything that's occurred recently.

That's good, I suppose, since I'm still not sure how to feel about us. Is he my _boyfriend_ now? I've tentatively come to terms with the fact that I do _like _like him, and I do want him to stay with me. But then I think about how that would make us a gay couple and I can't picture myself in that way.

Watching porn—the kind without tits—makes me hard this time around. Looking at the cocks and tight asses of other men turns me on just enough, and I manage to stroke one out, thinking about how nice a prime piece of ass like that can feel. How nice Jasper's can feel. It makes me want to fuck him again, preferably hard and thoroughly, but he isn't here to help me with that.

After jerking off, the boredom sets in. I realize I haven't made many friends where I actually live—I've reconnected with a few old classmates since I've moved back, but other than that, I'm a loner. Jasper has consumed me without me realizing it. But I don't feel very bad about it.

I send in several more applications to get a real job, and once, I helped fix the dishwasher for my mom. But that's it. The rest of the time I'm bored, bored, bored. There's nothing to do at my parents' house other than reading medical journals or crocheting.

That is why I'm caught by surprise on the seventh day after being left alone for so long. As I carefully construct some peanut butter toast, my cellphone buzzes from within my pocket, its loud ringtone making me jump and get peanut-y shit all over a finger. I grumble internally and lick my finger clean while digging my phone out to answer it.

Jasper's calling me for once. About fucking time.

I answer with a simple, "I miss your ass."

He chuckles, and just the sound is enough to make me smile. God, I'm turning into a pansy.

"Hi. I've missed you, too... It sucks to not have a day off." He does sound a bit sincere, so perhaps he didn't have a full schedule on purpose. I pin my phone between my ear and shoulder and try to finish making my toast as he speaks. "You know I've had to work all this week, though, and I'm scheduled for most of next week, too..."

"No," I whine a little, not caring if I sound childish. "I can't wait another week. When do you get off?"

"Almost every night," he answers earnestly.

I don't dignify that joke with a response. He's clearly not comprehending the dire importance of this discussion.

"...Ah. Next week," he finally says.

"Shit." Another whole week without him to entertain me would be torture. Maybe there is a time in the day when I could visit, without interfering with his job. "When are you working today?"

"Six 'til eleven."

I glance at the clock. "If I leave now, can I catch you before you leave for work?"

"Um, maybe if you hurry," he says, not sounding at all opposed to the idea. "You could spend the night here, too. I might be tired when I get home, though, so... no promises, haha."

I roll my eyes even though he can't see me. After all my attempts to convince him, he should know I'm not _only_ interested in seeing him for sex. That's only a meager part of it now that I've had a taste. "I don't care about that," I tell him. "Alright. I'll be there in a while."

"Okay. Bye, Edward." I can hear the smile in his voice, which becomes even more apparent as he tacks on a quiet, "Hurry, baby."

I say goodbye to him as well and hang up, then try to not to let a stupid grin overtake my face as I pocket my phone. I am excited to see him, though, and immediately begin stuffing a whole piece of toast into my mouth so I can leave as soon as possible.

"Do I know them?"

At that voice, I spin around on a heel to find my mother standing in the kitchen doorway. Not sure how much of the conversation she's heard, I try to quickly swallow and speak, but the stickiness of the peanut butter and dryness of the bread makes it stick in my mouth. I answer her with a mouth full of glue. "Maybe?"

I may or may not have just sprayed crumbs at her.

She raises an eyebrow at me. "Hiding your girlfriend from your mother? Tsk. I raised you better than that."

_Girlfriend. _She still thinks I'm dating girls, thankfully. I don't want to flat-out lie to her, but I'm not ready to admit to anything otherwise. She can believe I'm dating chicks all she wants.

"Um... We aren't exactly dating, yet," I try to explain with an ounce of truth in it. "But if things get serious, I'll bring her over."

My answer seems to placate her a little. She smiles and gestures for me to wipe at a corner of my mouth, which I do. "Do you want it to become serious, Edward?"

I watch her numbly for a few seconds, not sure what to say. Would we ever get to the point where I'd be willing to bring Jasper home with me, to introduce the man properly to my parents as my boyfriend?

My dad would be alright with that. But the woman I'm staring at now may not.

"I don't know," I finally say. "But she is a nice person. The kind you would like, I think..."

Okay, so that was probably a lie.

"Mm." She approaches me and picks up the second piece of toast, impishly stealing a bite while I put away the jar of peanut butter. "I hope so. I only want the very best for you."

Don't I know it.

"You can eat the rest of that," I tell her, remembering I've got to leave soon. "I'll be back tomorrow evening. Spending the night with... her."

I turn around and head out of the kitchen before I can see her expression—I know her well enough to predict her response. "Ooh," I hear her call amusedly after me. "Have fun, but not _too_ much fun, okay? Be safe."

Shaking my head, I go upstairs to brush my teeth and put on cologne. When I come back down five minutes later, my mother is still in the kitchen, probably waiting for me. It isn't like she's occupied with anything else.

"Oh, and tell the mystery girl 'hi' for me," is all she says.

I smile grimly and nod. "Will do. Bye, Mom."

She smiles too, and I can see just how happy she becomes thanks to only my words. I kiss her cheek before I leave, remembering that she is my mother, and her happiness is kind of important, too.

I wonder how long I'll have to lie to her about him.

* * *

"Ugh, I'm gonna have a precum stain in my pants," he groans.

"Then it's probably a good thing you're wearing black."

He smells so good here, and he tastes like the lightest trace of salt as I suck just above his shoulder. His responding laughter is weak and cut off by a gasp as I shove him harder against the wall.

Jasper likes being pinned to walls, as I've just found out. I've had him pinned since I first saw him in his work uniform—just a white, long-sleeve button-up shirt, with a tie and black slacks. It seemed so ordinary, but there was something about seeing him in semi-professional attire that made me harder than a rock.

So I pounced.

My fingers rub over the front of his slacks, feeling just how similar of a predicament he's in. He moans and tilts his head for me, presenting me with more skin. I'm tempted to give him a nice big hickey here, but maybe that could wait until he comes back home. We've got all night for that.

"I've gotta get going. Duty calls," he tells me, as if his brain is on the same frequency as mine. "Remember that I'm walking to work. I need to leave early."

Reluctantly, I pull back, but he cups my face in his hands and holds me still for a firm kiss. When we part, it's not without dissatisfaction. Being without him for just a week makes me want to do all sorts of things to him, now that he's here with me in person.

But he has more important things to do. Kissing and other fun things can come later.

So, after spending a good fifteen minutes up against a wall, Jasper departs, but not before reminding me that I'm free to do as I want, watch what I want, eat what I want while I'm here.

But when he's gone, there's nothing else I really want but him.

As the boredom slowly sinks in again, my horniness dissipates, and I find myself watching the same stupid TV channels as I would at my parents' house. When that gets too bland, I scour through his modest DVD collection.

_Cold Mountain. Brokeback Mountain. Escape to Witch Mountain._

Basically all crap.

He doesn't have many books or video games, either.

There isn't much to pass the time with. Finding nothing better to do, I poke around his apartment a little bit, just enough to satisfy my curiosity. There are a couple picture frames up that I hadn't inspected before—one of Jasper and Alice, the other of a young Jasper and his mother.

I examine the second photograph for a moment, trying to picture this woman being the like one I'd constructed in my head. Jasper told me very little about her. He'd said once that she abandoned him when he came out of the closet, due to her vehement beliefs against homosexuality—she threw him out onto the street, and it took her a full month to let her son back in.

She looks strangely pleasant in the photo, happy, pretty, not at all like the Cruella de Vil I'd imagined her as.

I don't know what to think about that.

Curiosity stifled, I lie down on Jasper's couch and close my eyes, imagining the ways my own mother could react to that sort of news. I can see a similar scene play out behind my eyelids.

My palms dig into my eyes and I curl onto my side, trying to not let myself think about it.

* * *

The restaurant where Jasper works as a waiter is quaint. The booths and tables lining the walls are intimately lit, surely meant for couples; the middle of the building greatly contrasts that design, however, appearing to be a sports bar-like section. There's also a much smaller bar to the side of the building, near the booths.

The entire place is mostly vacant, with just a few lingering customers and employees around before the restaurant closes up for the night.

Not a sign of Jasper, though.

The hostess doesn't look pleased as I enter the building just a few minutes before they are scheduled to close, but relaxes as I tell her why I am here. She guides me to the smaller bar, the closest spot to where Jasper will be, according to her. He's still working.

The relaxed, unbusy bartender in front of me doesn't seem to mind that I'm waiting on one of his stools for his co-worker. I smile politely at him but look away, a little nervous to be surprising Jasper at his workplace. I hadn't called to tell him I was coming here.

It was something I decided to do at the last minute. I'd actually napped for the majority of the time he was working, but it felt like a good idea to come here and walk him home, to let us catch another small moment together. It seemed like something he might enjoy.

After just a minute of waiting, I see Jasper emerge from a back room with a white cloth and a spray bottle in hand. He even passes me by without noticing who I am and wipes down a table diagonal to me.

There's only one customer in this side of the building, an elderly gentleman at a booth who glances back at me somewhat discontentedly as he eats. I try to ignore him and just keep an eye on Jasper, chuckling as he accidentally knocks over a pepper shaker with his wrist.

The man is quick to eye him critically, as if Jasper is incompetent rather than clumsy.

Jasper quickly finishes cleaning that table and makes sure the old coot has everything he needs, then disappears into the back room again. When he reappears, he walks by me again—but this time he notices.

"Edward?"

He's surprised alright, looking at me slack-jawed. I scratch my neck shyly and peer up at him, noting the charming little name tag clipped to his shirt. "Hi, Jazz. I got really bored without you, so I thought I'd come visit..."

He blinks slowly, reaching out to touch my shoulder as if to prove I'm not an apparition. "Really? No one's ever done that before." His fingers slip down my upper arm and he rests them there for a moment, looking over my head to judge the amount of work he has left. "I have just a little more side work to do, and one more table to wait, then I'm free. Shouldn't take long."

"Okay." My fingers pinch the side of his apron and playfully tug it, making him smile goofily. I smirk back and repeat his words from earlier in the day: "Hurry, baby."

Before Jasper can open his mouth to respond, the older man's voice interrupts. "Oh, c'mon!" he hollers, glaring at the both of us. "Keep that _queer_ shit behind closed doors, would ya?"

Oh, fuck no. As soon as I hear those words spoken to us in such a scathing tone, I jump to my feet, but Jasper immediately shoves me back down onto the stool. His eyes plead for me to calm down, which I grudgingly do, leaning back against the bar and clenching my fists to keep my anger contained.

_The bastard is old and crotchety, _I remind myself, infuriated. _Old and really fucking crotchety._

If the man were around our age, I probably wouldn't have kept my cool so easily. But then again, Jasper would get in trouble if I did anything, and I couldn't get him fired like that... Turning around on the stool, I face the bartender again—only now, his relaxed expression from before has vanished.

Jasper apologizes profusely to the elderly man, asking once again if there is anything he can do for him.

"Give me my check and some sanitary wipes," he grumbles in a tone that immediately makes my head spin back around. He makes a show of hastily pushing his plate away—the food on it is already gone, but the message given is just the same. "Fucking disgusting. I didn't come here to see some nancy-boys give each other googly eyes."

Jasper wipes his forehead with his wrist and takes a half-step back, answering with a shaky, "Y-yes, sir," before leaving to fetch what the man had requested.

Several of Jasper's co-workers have snuck closer by now—waitresses, a cook, and the hostess from earlier—with most trying not to look obvious in their snooping, even though they weren't standing there before. They and the bartender watch Jasper scurry around with mixed emotions, the most prominent one being curiosity.

Certainly he doesn't get yelled at often. Especially not about being gay.

Jasper finishes with the customer and the man finally leaves the restaurant, unexpectedly tight-lipped once he's gathered a crowd. Jasper is quiet too, clearing the table in utter silence with his back to all of co-workers. His jaw clenches a few times as he scowls down at the tabletop, but that expression quickly vanishes as he turns around.

The many intrusive faces makes his own turn red with mortification. He walks away hurriedly, almost blindly running straight into the restaurant's manager.

"What was that about?" the dark-haired woman asks him, loud enough for everyone else to hear. The eager eyes of everyone else makes me want to punch them all in the face. _What the fuck? Don't you have some more work to do, people?_

With a glance at a nearby clock, the answer is likely no. No, they don't.

The woman's presence doesn't make Jasper calm down at all. "I suppose he didn't like me," is all Jasper supplies to her.

But the woman doesn't accept that non-answer. "What did you do?"

Sighing, Jasper runs his hand through his hair and glances over at me. I look back apprehensively, not sure if he'd possibly get in trouble for the man's anger, even though it wasn't his fault. My actions were what riled him up, if anything.

"My boyfriend came in and sat down at the bar. I just greeted him, and..."

Jasper's voice gets quieter as he explains himself to his boss, perhaps finally realizing that more than just she are within hearing range. Her eyes dart over to me as she listens, and her expression is so unnervingly serious that it makes me look away, startled. No wonder Jasper's scared of her.

A cloth slowly sweeps over the counter in front of me. The bartender isn't truly focused on cleaning it, however, paying more attention to Jasper's words with an unreadable expression on his face.

Other employees are staring at me now, shocked.

I put my head in my hands and set my elbows on the counter, not wanting to acknowledge that they all seem actually surprised at Jasper's words—not only that I'm _with_ Jasper, but that he is gay, too. None of them appear to have known that information before.

But now they all know, because I've outed him.

"That's your boyfriend?" the manager asks, once again loud enough for everyone to listen in.

"Yes."

The bartender whistles quietly at that, as if it was the wrong answer.

"And you only touched him briefly?"

Jasper whispers his reply to her, too low for me or his co-workers to hear.

Even with his explanation, his boss doesn't sound pleased. "Come to my office, Jasper, right now. Jessica, clean the rest of his tables for the night."

I glance up just enough to see Jasper following the woman's heels like a submissive puppy, running his hand through his hair again, head hung low. The others continue to watch us as if we're the best form of entertainment. One girl steps toward me, blatantly curious, followed by another. All I can do is hang my head as well and feel like the very worst piece of shit in the world for exposing the truth to everyone like this.

I keep my face hidden from all of his nosy co-workers, but my avoidance tactic doesn't seem to faze them at all. They talk amongst themselves over my head instead.

"I didn't know Jasper had a boyfriend," one girl gossips.

"_Pfft._ I didn't even know Jasper was gay..."

They're briefly silent, letting their words sink in. The bartender eventually speaks as well, with a low, loaded whisper. "None of us did."

The guilt overwhelms me. I'm such a fucking idiot for not thinking about how an onlooker may react to me teasing Jasper in a too-affectionate manner, for not considering the possibility that Jasper could be outed _within his own workplace!_ He's known these people for a long time, even longer than he's known me—and yet, none of them ever _really_ knew him.

I can't imagine how Jasper's feeling right about now. Everyone he works with knows—how many of these people wouldn't approve of his sexuality and treat him with contempt? And now he's being grilled by his boss, possibly at risk of being fired?

"Can he get fired for it?" I blurt, abruptly lifting my head. I look to the familiar bartender for an answer, but he visibly wavers, at a loss of words.

He doesn't know.

"For being gay? Hell no," one of the waitresses says for him. "Not in America. Unless Maria wants a gigantic lawsuit shoved up her ass."

While the girls continue to whisper and giggle about how their boss would probably like that sort of thing, I rest my chin on my palm and stare at where Jasper had headed, hoping for him to come back soon, preferably smiling with Maria, or laughing... Even though I know that's unlikely.

When he finally emerges several minutes later without his name tag or apron on, he's doing neither one of those things. Panic bolts in me at the sight even though Jasper appears calm and impassive. He walks directly toward me, causing the others' voices to lull as he steps up to my stool.

His hands are on my face in an instant and then he's kissing me, thumbs rubbing over my cheekbones, lips affixed to mine. The girls instantly get louder and then he pulls back just an inch.

The shock in my expression fades, but the apology I provide with my eyes still isn't enough. There probably isn't an apology good enough to make up for the havoc that I've wreaked upon him.

"You've been keeping things from us," the bartender addresses Jasper.

He groans and reluctantly steps back. "Just... tell me about it tomorrow. Please."

Jasper's hands slip down to grab my own and he pulls me off of the stool. He begins to release them, but I continue holding on to one hand firmly, not wanting to let him go.

He ignores the inquisitive comments of everyone else and we leave together, with Jasper giving them no more than a wave goodbye. After exiting the building, we begin heading back toward his apartment.

The cloud of guilt hanging over me doesn't leave quite as quickly.

This was not anything like how I'd expected my visit to go. I ruined it all for him in mere minutes. The conversation he'd had with his manager means everything now, and I can't resist the urge to ask about it.

"What'd your boss say?"

He looks up at the dark night sky. There are no stars to be seen tonight because of the city lights, but he stares anyway, as if imagining they're there. I look too, but don't understand what has caught his attention.

"No public displays of affection while on the clock," he answers plainly.

That's all? The relief instantly lifts weight off of my chest. It's a given that PDA isn't really allowed while working, even though we'd been only very slightly affectionate, not enough to warrant any punishment for it. But I was so scared that his employer would be just as judgmental as the elderly man had been.

"And that you're pretty cute," he continues, gripping my hand tighter as we cross a street together. My confusion must be clear in my expression because he laughs softly, tugging me closer to him. "Maria already suspected that I'm gay. We didn't surprise her."

I frown, remembering the looks of sincere shock on all of his co-workers' faces when they learned that Jasper was gay. "The others didn't suspect anything."

"I don't care about them. They're... people I work with. Unimportant."

I shake my head, still afraid that they'll all treat him differently now.

Jasper stops walking and grabs both of my hands again, making me stop to face him so he can lean on me, resting his head on my shoulder and placing his arms around my waist. I tentatively put my arms on his back, and this time, our embrace doesn't scare me at all. I clutch him tighter and kiss the side of his face, sensing he has more to tell.

"Keeping it a secret from them wasn't important either," he mumbles into my neck. "Being gay is just one of those things that's wiser to keep swept under the rug sometimes, if possible. That's all. Less unnecessary strife that way... There are bigots everywhere."

"I'm so sorry," I grieve, "I didn't mean to expose you—"

"Doesn't matter. Fuck 'em all. Whether I love cock or not isn't any of their business."

Quietly, we laugh.

There's something almost electric about being here with him, despite the flow of our conversation—it's energizing, empowering. I lift his head and kiss him softly on the mouth, and then deeply, letting my tongue show him just how he makes me feel.

"I'm so glad you came to see me," he says after we part. "You're real sweet, you know that? I'm gonna start losing teeth with you around."

I harshly grimace and then laugh again, imagining him smiling without any teeth. "Oh, shit. Don't lose your teeth, Jazz. If you do I'll have to reconsider this."

He mock-glowers at me. "That's shallow. You only like me because I'm sexy?"

One of my hands moves to slide down his chest, feeling the firm contour of his body through the white button-up he's wearing. Very sexy.

"Obviously."

He smiles a little though his glare, grinning even wider when I tuck him into my side as we begin walking again.

Well, not quite 'tuck'; it's difficult to do that with someone who's just as tall as you are. I wrap my arm around his waist and keep him held against me as we walk, which Jasper seems more than pleased to do.

This makes me feel as if we're a real couple. Not friends with benefits, but a couple. Boyfriends. We haven't spoken either of those words yet—I've been too unsure of myself lately, and I'm willing to bet Jasper just hasn't wanted to 'force' me into accepting something I don't want. As if posing a question would force me into anything.

He'd said the words to his manager, though. Jasper explained that I was his _boyfriend_, a word which he had used twice. It could have been used only to explain us in the simplest of terms, as Maria isn't privy to anything concerning our relationship's details, but... he said the word nonetheless.

"You called me your boyfriend," I point out, partially to see how he'd react to the mention of it. His mouth opens slightly to speak, but he remains silent, furrowing his brow. "Earlier," I elaborate, "when you were talking to your boss, you called me that."

"Oh."

He chews his lip a little, remaining quiet as if he's not sure how to explain himself. After a moment, he finally utters, "Was that wrong of me to say...? Sorry, I..."

"No, it's okay."

At a red crosswalk light, we stop and wait for traffic. There's an unfamiliar feeling in my chest that arises when I think about that word flowing from his lips, the label for what we could mean to one another, if only I accepted it.

"It just made me feel funny, that's all," I try to clarify.

"Good funny, or bad funny?"

Unsure, I rub at the spot in my chest, trying to decipher what it is. The thought of him calling me that makes me feel wanted, and warm, and...

"Good, I think."

Jasper rotates in my arm so that he's facing me. His fingers splay out beside mine on my chest so that his hand is resting over my heart. I cover his hand with my own, holding it to me.

He's so, so warm.

He leans in and kisses me, soft and slow, and it feels like he's trying to tell me something that words cannot say; something he will not say.

It's like he's waiting for me to ask him first.

The crosswalk signal shifts to green just then, and I take that as a sign that I should.

"Jasper," I murmur against his lips, pulling back just enough to see his expression. "Will you be my boyfriend?"

And judging by that smile of his, I already know the answer.


	11. Chapter 11

_A/N: The response to this story has been overwhelming, to say the least :) Thanks so much for reading, guys! _

* * *

Not an hour after Jasper is officially declared my boyfriend, I'm balls deep inside of him, one of my hands wrapped around his cock while he grips the headboard with both of his. He moans loudly and presses his ass back against my hips, his back arching beautifully, and I satiate his need, slamming into him and loving the feel of him constricting around me. The feeling becomes too much too soon and I cum first, unfortunately, but keep fucking him despite the tingling in my over-sensitive cock until he's cumming all over his bedsheets.

Three days into dating, we have phone sex. I jerk off while he fucks himself with a vibrator—it's flesh-colored, he says, but it's smaller than I am. He wishes it was me instead. His naughty, husky words are just what I need to hear, and I whisper some back, telling him that I love his ass, and his cock, and I can't wait to see him again so I can put him to good use.

One week into dating, he makes me touch myself, _there_. He instructs me to do so over the phone, and thankfully doesn't make me use more than just the tip of my middle finger and some lube. I greet the nerves there for the first time—they're sensitive, not quite erogenous, but they feel good. They seem to like it when I wriggle my barely-inside finger a little, not thrusting inward, just moving up and down. I tell Jasper I don't want to go further because the unwilling muscles inside make me kind of uneasy. He tells me that it's fine, and he'll do the rest for me, someday.

Two weeks into dating, I've spent the night with him once more, and we've had sex two more times. But something different happens one evening after taking a long run through a local park together—we're both sweaty and panting by the time we get back to his place. He slumps down onto his couch and takes his shirt off, and there's... something about the way he looks, all flushed pink and moist and manly that makes me drop to my knees in front of him. He seems to choke on air as I hesitantly expose the rest of him, then take him into my mouth, tasting the salt from his sweat and precum. He feels so thick between my lips, so warm. I gag as I let him most of the way in, and continue gagging often, but Jasper groans and thrusts up each time it happens, so I think he likes it. He pulls out of my mouth at the last second and releases onto his stomach. Though I'm relieved, I tell myself that next time I should taste it.

That night Jasper diligently returns the favor, taking me deep in his throat while his fingers tug and massage the skin around my balls. When I start to get close, he sticks his finger in his mouth too, wets it thoroughly, and then presses it firmly against me—yes, _there__!—_completely ignoring how my muscles tense up in shock. His index finger slips all the way inside my ass and he abruptly stops sucking me off. Jazz moves his finger just a bit and plays with me, from the _inside_ now, with his amused eyes peeking up at me from between my legs, his lips smirking a little before he lets his eyes drift back down to stare at where his finger is. After a minute of gently stroking those strange, sensitive nerves, he pulls his digit out and kisses my inner thigh, telling me I'm such a good, brave boy for him. Then his mouth resumes its servicing.

Through it all, I'm not upset, or angry, or scared. Nervous, yes, but not scared anymore. I'm past that.

The third week in, we have phone sex again, and he murmurs all these things to me that make me hard and nervous still. Excited-nervous this time. He tells me that he's dying to fuck me and show me how talented he is. He wants me to sit on his lap, feel all of me as I take him inside, hear my surprised gasps and groans as I experience my first real, slow fucking. I touch my asshole as he talks, but even when my finger's finally inside, it still feels strange.

I fretfully apologize to him for my utter failure at self-fingering, but he shrugs it off with laughter. "Don't worry about it, baby. I still love you," he says, jokingly—there's abundant amusement in his voice.

His words...

They _mildly_ scare me.

I'm stunned, though. And I don't laugh with him.

Jasper seems to realize what he's admitted to and immediately imitates me, going stark silent.

Ten seconds later, without another response from either one of us, I hear a muttered curse word and then a blaring dial tone.

He... hung up?

Too paralyzed to take action, I stare blankly at the red 'call ended' screen of my cellphone.

I unconsciously close it to make it shut up.

Wipe lubricant off my finger.

Ignore the lube in my butt.

And... I think.

As soon as we made this official, I knew that he would develop strong feelings for me like this. It wasn't a foreign concept at all, and I've thought about it thoroughly. But three weeks in? Isn't that too soon? I remember my shitty past relationships with girls and realize that no, three weeks isn't _so_ abnormal. Not if we've known each other intimately for quite a while longer than that.

There's an unwelcome twisty feeling inside me when I think about those words, the affectionate way in which he'd uttered them—it seemed to come so naturally, like it's something he tells me every day.

But he's never said _I __love__ you_ before now.

I _still_ love you, he'd said. Still. Meaning... he's probably loved me for some unknown amount of time before this?

I vaguely recall the hearts and whatnot he'd typed to me when we were online friends, before we'd even met. I thought perhaps it was because he was trying to pretend to be a girl—chicks do cutesy shit like that, right? But now I realize that might not have been it. Maybe he _was_ that invested, that long ago.

Has he been carrying a torch for me, for this long? If so, while I've been trying to figure out how to stick a finger up my butt comfortably, Jasper's been holding his tongue. All this time, he may have been keeping this from me.

And I didn't even say it back to him.

Is he angry with me? Frustrated? Disappointed? I remember what he looked like as he cried and feel guilty, knowing I've upset him again. But fuck if I'm going to bolt from him now.

I open my phone and redial his number. Our conversation will not end like that.

It takes four long rings, but he finally answers. Without a word.

"Jasper?" I speak in a subdued manner, afraid that anything less than gentle would upset him further. "Jazz... Talk to me, sweetheart."

I've never called him a pet name like 'sweetheart' before, other than perhaps 'baby' when I was feeling overly flirtatious. It's not my style, but I'm hoping it'll break his walls down a little, make him open up again, or at the very least, reassure him that nothing's changed. Because nothing has.

He... loves me. And that's okay.

He's quiet still, but I hear a slight rustling sound so I know he's heard me. I rub a hand over my face and hope I haven't fucked everything up.

"Let's focus on something else tonight," he says after a long pause.

I'm not sure if he's referring to my fingering lessons or not, but I change the subject, regardless.

Jazz becomes uncharacteristically non-talkative for a while, so I lead the conversation, telling him that I miss him, and that I desire him badly. I want him stretched tightly around me, in my hand, in my mouth, and perhaps someday soon, in my ass, filling me up and staking the claim that he so rightfully deserves.

That cheers him up, albeit just slightly.

His dark mood eventually lightens and we masturbate to the sounds of one another, slick fists wrapped tight around ourselves as we vocalize our arousal. He seems to like my grunts and groans, though I greatly prefer his gasps and breathy moans. I tell him this and he moans louder for me, and I can even faintly hear the sound of his hand pumping wetly over his cock.

Jasper is so fucking sexy when he's uninhibited like this, and in him I can see the dirty 'girl' I'd first grown so addicted to online, the one who'd typed with such foul language. But the fact that he's a boy, such a dirty, virile, beautiful boy... That makes it even better, like he's some delicious forbidden fruit that I've plucked from a tree, created solely for my enjoyment.

Once we're spent and tired we bid each other goodnight. He doesn't speak those words again, but I can sense it in the way he murmurs goodbye, with the too-big heart he wears on his sleeve pounding more prominently than ever before.

After he's hung up, I hear the familiar dial tone and let the sound echo around me for a moment. My thumb traces over the keypad of my phone in the shape of a small heart, and if I try to remember hard enough, it's almost like I can hear him say the words again.

* * *

A little over a month into our relationship, today, I'm just minutes from Jasper's apartment and on my way over. It's just past sunset and he isn't scheduled to work tonight, so that means I'll have him all to myself, all night.

I'm fucking _giddy_.

I take a small detour and grab some Chinese take-out on the way there, already knowing what dish he prefers and which restaurant is the most reputable in the area. Jazz loves the Chinese from this place, and, well... I love to spoil him.

Jasper's door is open just a crack when I arrive at his apartment. The faintest hint of hushed voices meets my ears. Bemused and unsure if I'm still obligated to knock, I open the door further and step inside, wondering who in the world could be here with him when he was expected to be alone.

He's found sitting on the couch with someone sitting in his lap—Alice, I immediately recognize, with their arms embracing one another, her dainty legs hooked across his with her head tucked into his chest. An emotion akin to jealousy swells in me at the sight, even though I realistically know their relationship is absolutely no threat to his and mine. He's certainly gay, and I know Alice would never do such a thing to me. Still, it's rather uncomfortable seeing someone else holding him so lovingly. That's _my_ job now.

But that emotion disappears abruptly at his helpless expression. Alice turns to glance at me with her eyes red-rimmed and cheeks wet. She sniffles and wipes at her face with her arm, fruitlessly trying to hide the signs of crying from me. But it's of no use. My protective streak flares and I immediately wonder who the hell could have hurt her.

Jasper murmurs something, to which she nods and slips from his lap onto the couch.

He stands and walks over to me, finally greeting me as I first expected him to, with a kiss and a warm embrace.

"Hi," I whisper against him.

"I missed you."

Sagging back against the door to close it, I bring Jasper with me as he chuckles and comments on the pleasant smell of the food. Too soon, though, we separate and his fingers slip down over mine to take the plastic bag from my grip.

My concern for Alice remains clear in my expression, but he just shrugs and turns away, setting the Chinese down on the kitchen countertop.

My overnight bag falls from my shoulder to the floor. I politely smile and wave at a rather dreary-looking Alice, who halfheartedly smiles back and wiggles her fingers at me in greeting. But I don't know what to say. Giving her an apologetic look, I leave the room and follow Jasper into his kitchen, feeling more comfortable beside him than anywhere else.

He asks me if I'd like anything to drink, but I close the refrigerator door before he can take anything from it. My arms lock around him and I push him back against the counter.

His standard greeting wasn't good enough, I decide. I make sure to kiss Jasper deeply this time, with tongue, even tugging him closer and sneaking a hand up his shirt to feel more of the skin that I've yearned so much for this past week. We pull apart after a couple dozen seconds, and a slow, lazy smile spreads across his face, clearly surprised yet pleased with my brash behavior.

I look at his hair. He had a haircut a couple weeks ago, and I've already seen it once, but it's taking some getting used to. His hair is mostly the same as before, just a couple inches shorter and more styled, but noticeably more manly. I like it.

My fingers tangle through the soft tendrils and kiss him again, just once, for no reason whatsoever.

"What's wrong with Alice?" I whisper after a few moments, rubbing one overly-curly blond wisp between my fingertips.

He blinks a few times and looks toward the living room, as if he's suddenly remembered there's another person in his home. "Oh... Riley just broke up with her," he answers, too quietly for her to hear us. Jasper retreats from my arms and returns to the fridge for refreshments. "It'll blow over soon, but she's pretty torn up over it right now. Give her a day or two."

I take glasses from a cabinet and set them on the counter for him. He grabs a pitcher of tea, and I ask for a cup as well—even his preference of tea sweetness is something we wholly agree upon.

Solemn at the reason of her distress, I don't say anything for a while, watching as Jasper pours our drinks. Alice wasn't dating anyone when we'd first met, so Riley was fairly new. So why is she so upset over him? Did he mean that much to her?

"They weren't dating for that long, were they?"

Jasper chuckles a little and waves a hand out in front of his face. "No, not long at all. _He_ doesn't even really matter. Riley's a douche, anyway." He glances back to where Alice is and leans toward me secretively. "But all of her boyfriends do this. They date her for a month or two, then they split. They never stick around for long. She's just so tired of it, ya know?"

I could understand her being upset if she loved Riley or something, but... she doesn't. If he didn't mean anything to her, why does she care about their break up at all, then? She should be over the moon now that he's gone.

Jasper sighs at my expression. "You wouldn't understand."

"No..." I say slowly, still lost. "I guess not."

Jasper can understand her feelings perfectly though. I minutely wonder if it's only because he's been her friend for so long, or if it's because he's gay that there is a certain part of him that can decipher a woman's complex feelings. It's not that I think he's girly, and I know he doesn't think like a female. But it's clear that he can relate to Alice on a completely different level than I.

He's clearly all man, though, not feminine—just because he'd cried on two separate occasions and can totally relate to his best gal pal doesn't mean he's the latter at all. He's masculine and strong everywhere it's needed, and then... tender, and passionate. Absolutely so.

And that's a very good thing. I'm quite glad he's like this. I don't think I could even consider dating a macho man with the emotional scale of a brick wall.

"This smells fucking great." Jasper sifts through the bag of take-out, searching for the good stuff. "Did you get me my favorite? Without broccoli?"

Of course I did. I lean my hip against the counter and smile at the same time he does. He makes a happy noise when he finds the container and kisses me chastely again, and I dip a finger into the top of his jeans to stay close, overly pleased to see that nine dollars worth of chicken in some sort of spicy sauce makes him this fucking excitable.

My grin lessens, though, when I realize that I didn't get anything for Alice. I didn't know she would be here. His excitement falters at my expression and he eyes me curiously, waiting for me to speak my mind.

"Jazz, I thought we were gonna be alone tonight," I tell him in a whisper. "I mean... just you and me."

His eyebrows come together immediately, almost angrily, and he looks pointedly down at the hand that's touching him. Feeling burned by his gaze, I pull it away. "I'm sorry? Alice's needs come before yours do, Edward. She feels like shit right now."

So quick to confront, isn't he? I scrub a hand through my hair and try to think of how to reply to that, realizing what he thinks I meant. Alice will always come first, in his mind—she's his best friend, after all, and she's been here for him through all of the tough times. Of course he'd be there for her when asked.

"I know that," I say, treading carefully, "but I just didn't buy food for all three of us. That's all I'm worried about."

Jasper calms slightly and looks back down to the bag. "I don't mind splitting. She eats like a bird, anyway... And I don't know if she'll have much of an appetite, after what happened today."

His hands spread on the countertop turn into tight fists. I can almost see the undercurrent of emotions surging through him, so much stronger today than usual because of the upset in his best friend. I'm sure he wishes he could fix the situation for her, but he can't. Not really.

"It's not my place to ask, but... why do they dump her so quickly?" I whisper cautiously, unsure if I'm crossing any boundaries by asking such a bold thing. Apparently I haven't, though, because Jasper answers just the same.

"Various reasons. Too vain, or too spirited, or too... _anything_. Any reason at all. They don't feel the same way about her as I do." Jazz turns to face me fully with his eyes still cast down. His fingers pluck lightly at the bottom hem of my shirt, and he looks so sad, as if her pain is his own. "They don't... love her."

_Love_. It seems to be a recurring theme with him.

Maybe, I surmise, her pain _is_ his own. Maybe he thinks I don't love him.

A sharp breath escapes from me of its own volition, which causes Jasper to start and look up. My hand curls around his and I open my mouth, but hesitate, not quite sure if I'm interpreting him correctly.

"They should," I belatedly say, squeezing his fingers. "I'll bring out some plates and utensils. Go, tend to your best friend. She needs you tonight."

His reaction is hard to read, but I ignore that and turn him around, pushing him back toward the living room. He groans and laughs and listens to me, picking up the food and our drinks before heading back to Alice. I pretend not to notice as he glances back at me once more on his way out.

While I retrieve a few plates and forks for us, my focus is on his words, and the words he'd told me before. He loves me... Yes, I know he does. It'd be wrong to walk on eggshells around him because of that, and I probably shouldn't ignore what he said, even if it was a slip of the tongue.

I'll acknowledge it, eventually. Even if he'd like to pretend he didn't say anything.

There is actually more than enough food for the three of us. He was right about Alice not having much of an appetite, but he forces her to eat something anyway. Jasper is the only one of us who can marginally use chopsticks correctly, and he flaunts that fact, playfully hand-feeding Alice with them and making her giggle whenever he drops something, whether purposefully or not.

Jasper is her main source of entertainment tonight, and I know he's attempting everything he can to get her mind off of other things. It's clear that he's trying so hard to be a great friend. That's just the type of person he is.

When we're finished and full, Alice and Jasper talk mostly between themselves, and only occasionally do I join in on their conversation—I'm content enough to sit beside him and let his words wash over me. His voice is too soothing like this, all deep and thoughtful and soft as he tells his stories. I lay my head on his shoulder and close my eyes.

He asks me if I'm tired, but I smile and shake my head, reassuring him that I'm comfortable just like this. He kisses my hair and threads his fingers with mine on his thigh.

"I'm really happy for you both," Alice says to us, sighing in reverence as she watches our interaction. "You're so perfect for each other."

A low hum rumbles from Jasper's throat, and I glance up at him, realizing he must be agreeing with her.

"You think so?" he asks her, peering back down at me with his gaze half-lidded and warm. He licks his lips, and a smile tugs on mine, knowing he's probably resisting the urge to kiss me.

Alice nods. "But doesn't it feel surreal to you, Jazz? I mean, with how your friendship started, with your deceit and Edward being _straight_, of all things, compared to now... It seemed so impossible that you'd end up dating, and yet," she gestures between us, "you are. And you've never looked happier."

Is that true? My eyes shift over to Alice, but she's staring at her best friend, watching him watch me with rapt interest.

"I don't know if I've ever been happier," he agrees after a moment.

That speaks even louder than his _I__ love__ you__._ Jasper really cares about me, and I've been treating his ardent feelings with such irresponsibility, such indecisiveness, all this time. It's a wonder that I haven't hurt him more than I have.

But now I can say with a bit of confidence that I won't let myself hurt him again, not willingly, because he's as close to perfection as I've ever met and I wouldn't do anything to risk losing him.

"Do you _love_ each other?"

Her taunting words stun me, and my eyes immediately dash back to Jasper's, frantic to see his reaction. Both his complexion and expression darken.

My face becomes warm, too, and I don't know if I can even respond. Fidgeting in my seat, I think about how devoted I feel toward him, asking myself if that's love or just something lesser. He rattles so many feelings inside me, and sometimes, when we're alone and embracing one another in comfortable silence, I feel so much fondness for him that I feel like I'm going to burst. If that's not love, it's awfully close.

Jasper's hand removes itself from mine before softly cradling my chin.

Then he abruptly grabs my jaw and twists it in Alice's direction.

"It's impossible not to love him," he answers her. He shakes my head roughly for emphasis, tightening his hold when I scrunch up my face and act like I'm going to pull away. "Look at this face! It's adorable."

"Jazz." I groan and squeeze my eyes shut, knowing I'm definitely blushing now. Alice is laughing her head off at my reaction. "Come on. I'm not _adorable_."

Handsome, maybe. Pulchritudinous. Not adorable.

"I beg to differ."

His lips touch my cheek then, and his hold on my chin becomes so gentle that it feels like I'm made of the most precious of porcelain. He kisses the corner of my smile as it begins, and not two seconds later, my hand is in his hair and I'm kissing the shit out of him.

For a moment, I don't care that we have an audience. Jasper's a little more mindful, though, pecking one last kiss to my lips before guiding me back down into my seat, chuckling and wiping the corner of his mouth. His lips are redder, and his hair is by far messier thanks to me. God, do I want to ravish him senseless.

Alice watches the whole exchange, smiling faintly with her closed hand covering her mouth. She's amused at first, but then her eyes begin to drift to the floor, her mirth slowly fading as she thinks about things far more serious than either one of us.

Despite what seems to be her inner turmoil, she doesn't even look close to shedding a tear. Alice doesn't seem like the type of person to show any weaknesses, crying included, and so I'm sure her tears from before were not meant to be seen by anyone but Jasper. Her true feelings were exposed to him alone.

And I can see why. He probably knows her better than the back of his hand.

He reaches out and pulls her hand down from her face, cupping it in his larger one. "You'll find your match someday, Alice. Don't fret."

She smiles at him again but shakes her head, disagreeing. "I'm starting to doubt it," she says dispassionately. "No man would leave if the woman was perfect, or at least... acceptable. What's wrong with me? What do I need to improve upon?"

"_Nothing_," Jasper presses. "I know it's cheesy, and it's been used a million times, but you're perfect just the way you are." Alice scoffs at him and looks down into her lap. He grabs her other hand, gripping them both in his, and sinks to the floor on his knees to stay in front of her.

"No, _listen_ to me," he says imploringly. "You're quirky, you're fun, you're blunt and honest and such a sweet, sweet person." Jasper brings one small hand to his mouth and whimsically kisses the back of it, which makes her grin and giggle more. He smirks up at her. "And you're fucking gorgeous, Al. Don't let some fickle asshole make you think otherwise."

"I agree," I pitch in, not nearly as eloquently. "You're beautiful. When we first met, I had a hard time keeping my eyes away from your breasts. They're just that nice."

Alice guffaws.

But Jasper? He becomes an owl. His head twists around at an odd angle and he stares at me, unblinking.

"Wow, Edward." Alice seems to appreciate my words though, freeing her hands from Jasper's and immediately flinging her arms around me. "Thank you."

"You're... welcome," I manage to reply, trying and failing to ignore the feeling of said nice breasts pressing up against me as I hug her back.

Fuck, I miss boobs. The lovely, soft, squeezable curves of women are something that I think I'll miss for a while. The pussy I could frankly live without, and Jasper has a great ass so I'm not missing anything there, but _boobs_? Yeah... I used to be a breast man.

But with a glance at Jasper, I remember what I'm giving it up for, and it's worth it. The person he is—gentle, compassionate, with the same interests and sense of humor as my own—makes me feel as if he's the best choice, hands down. The flat planes and hard flesh of a man is something I've more or less come to appreciate over time, as well, but I've never felt so much potent chemistry with a person, regardless of gender. His personality alone is more attractive than a perfect set of tits any day.

Even so, as I try to keep my gaze from wandering down, I can't help it—I _really_ can't—and my eyes glance at Alice's killer cleavage for half a second as she pulls away. Jasper notices this and smiles a little, but it seems hesitant, like he isn't quite sure how to feel about it.

Once he stands up from the floor, I promptly pull him down into my lap.

There isn't a doubt in my mind that this is where I want to be. I've grown accustomed to admiring women all my life, and it's become second nature, but the long, lean, firm body of Jasper is a new flavor I've only begun to taste.

He's mine.

My fingers stroke his hip and I kiss his jaw, reassuring him that I'm completely his, as well.

* * *

"Do you miss, um... breasts?"

Those are the first words Jasper says to me after Alice leaves for the night. Apparently my single swift glance at a woman's chest is enough to make him feel insecure, despite the fact that he and I were just playing tonsil hockey not two seconds ago, pressed up against his front door again because we couldn't spare a second to go sit down.

I sigh against his mouth. "Truthfully? Yeah, a little." My fingers slip up his shirt and I begin lifting it, sliding my hands up his solid torso. He tentatively takes his shirt off for me, and I kiss his lips once more in thanks, then begin to go lower. "But you have nothing to worry about, Jazz. I love your chest..."

My lips touch one of his pectoral muscles, the nipple there, then drift further down. I lower to my knees to kiss his skinny belly and that cute little navel piercing. "Your stomach..."

He sucks in a breath as I sink down even lower until my head is level with his crotch. My fingertips gently skim over the growing bulge there, then deftly unbutton his jeans. "Your cock."

He's going commando today. I grin at his lack of underwear and tug his pants down a little, giving his erection enough room to come out and play with me. Jasper exhales a curse and runs his fingers into my hair, but he doesn't urge me to do anything more. He's learned from the last time I had my mouth on him that I prefer to take my time.

Visibly swelling with desire, the sight of his length is as captivating as always. As I wrap my fist around him, though, I think of the few different things we've done like this. The list still seems lacking.

We've had sex several times and not once have I bottomed for him. On only one occasion did his finger enter me, and even then, it was because he surprised me. I'm not sure how apparent my nervousness about bottoming has been to Jasper, but I'm sure he's well aware, and that is why he isn't pushing me to just fucking do it already.

We have made very little progress, in that sense.

My own cock starts to harden at the wanton thought of him topping me though. I ought to try it at least once, shouldn't I? He would be an indulgent lover, I'm sure. A large part of me wants to find out what it would feel like to be completely filled by this man, to have him reach all the sensitive places deep inside of me that I've yet to discover.

Would I like it just as much as Jasper does, if not more?

Would I like it at all?

On a mission to find out, I thoroughly lick the swollen tip of him once, just enough to bother him.

Jasper becomes alarmed as I rise up to stand.

"Dude, where are you going?" he almost shouts as I begin to walk away, but then immediately shuts up as I wordlessly answer his question. I lift my shirt over my head and drop it on the floor, winking at him before disappearing into his bedroom. He knows precisely where I'm going.

Predictably, he sprints after me. His pants are shucked off in milliseconds and then he's pouncing onto his bed before I'm able to.

I raise an eyebrow at him and strip off the rest of my clothes. Excited and realizing where this is heading, Jasper goes ahead and pulls out the required lube and condom, then gets into his usual position, lying back in the center of the bed with his legs spread, knees up.

"Eager, aren't you?" I tease.

He just grins.

Jasper opens the bottle of lubricant as I move between his legs. Before he can pour any on his fingers, though, I stop him by grabbing his wrist.

"Oh, did you want to do it?"

Unable to speak the bold words I want to, I shake my head 'no', then unhurriedly push his legs down flat onto the mattress. I crawl over him until my knees are placed on either side of his torso.

And then I sit on his cock.

Well, sit _on_ being the key word here, as it ends up nestled right along the crack of my ass. Close enough.

Jasper looks positively stunned as he stares at where our bodies meet. I've never sat on him like this before, and his naked penis has never dared to touch the pristine innocence that is my bottom.

I chuckle at the way he swallows roughly, wide-eyed as fuck and looking puzzled. When I grind my ass against him, he groans and seizes my hips with both hands, leaving me to grab the discarded open bottle of lubricant so it doesn't spill all over his bed. When I close the lid and set it down, I realize my fingers are beginning to shake again. _Shit__._

I take a deep breath and try to calm myself. Now would not be an opportune time to panic.

Jasper watches me intently as my quaky fingers slip over his cheekbone and smooth, shaven jaw, memorizing the features that seem slightly too fair to be on such a man. He's beautiful all over, and I know this well, but remembering the person he was today, the man who'd gotten down onto his knees to convince his friend that she's perfect... The man that sacrifices his own wants to tend to the needs of others, he's even more beautiful.

Even now, over a month into our relationship, he's still letting me direct it, sacrificing every last one of his preferences and desires to satisfy everything _I_ crave. That definitely isn't something I want from a lover, not at all, but I appreciate it more than he even realizes.

That is why I'm so sure about this. About him.

"Jazz," I speak quietly, leaning down until my face is just above his. It wasn't a part of my plan to kiss him right now, but he closes his eyes and leans forward in offering, and I can't help but kiss his lips softly. My held breath is exhaled slowly as I pull back just enough to speak. "I love you."

His eyes pop open.

Now, even though I'd previously considered what possible reactions he could have, I didn't think of this one. He bolts up in bed immediately, making me tumble awkwardly back onto his thighs. Disoriented, I blink rapidly up at the grainy texture of his ceiling.

I wonder if my words were too unexpected.

"_What__?"_

The abrupt way he says it makes my attention snap back to his face, but he just looks incredulous, like he can't believe his ears.

_You__ heard__ me__, __Jasper__._

I gingerly clamber back into my designated spot on his lap. Now that he's sitting upright, we're even closer together when I settle a knee on both of his sides. It makes the three words feel distinctly more intimate than they already are.

"I love you."

"Oh," he exhales, and it almost sounds like it's in relief. There appears be be another goofy smile spreading on his face, but he quickly hides it against my shoulder as he captures me in a hug. "Shit. Fuck. I love you, too, Edward. So much."

I swallow loudly. The manly part of me wants to seem like I'm not as affected as I am, but those words are like an electric pulse to my heart, jolting me awake.

My arms wrap around his neck similarly to the way his arms are placed around my waist. His embrace is calming until his hands begin to stroke the skin of my back, his firm cock throbbing against my ass, still aroused. My own swells at the feel of it beneath me.

That reminds me.

"And you know I've been scared, but... I want to bottom for you," I utter shyly. "Then you can make love to me the way you've always wanted to."

Jasper doesn't speak for a while. It takes him a moment to respond at all, and at first, he only withdraws enough to look at me.

"It'll be great," he says with a touch of confidence, lifting his chin just a bit. His eyes shift back and forth between mine. "I promise you, Edward, I will make it worth your while."

"I know you will."

I emphasize this with a thorough rub against him, and he laughs, groping my ass a little. One of his fingers slips between my cheeks to massage the puckered skin there.

"Not tonight, though," he adds as an afterthought.

My eyebrows climb my forehead in disbelief. "Not tonight?"

"No," he says simply, failing to hide a roguish smirk. "I want you to fuck me one last time, Edward, before I turn you into a cock-hungry bottom for life."


	12. Chapter 12

Jasper's fucking _beautiful_ when he's on his knees, I swear.

Without the hindrance of a noticeable gag reflex, he gradually takes me all the way to the back of his throat and holds me there, letting me revel in the sensual feel of wet, delicious heat. His wide blue eyes wander up to my face, and he grins at me, despite having his mouth fully stuffed with my cock.

I can't repeat it enough. He's beautiful.

My fingers trace over his hollowed cheeks and I resist the urge to shift my hips. Jasper loves playing games with me, and this is probably going to be another one. How slow can he go without me giving him shit for it?

His eyes eventually flutter closed, and he tongues along the bottom side of my shaft as he pulls back just a few inches. Several seconds later, I'm thoroughly greeting his throat again.

But that's the last of it.

I groan and twist my fingers into his hair. He's knowingly torturing me with all this deliberate pausing, and he probably won't let me cum this way, but fuck if I don't love him for being such a tease. A slow, hot, wet blowjob has got to be the greatest torture in the world.

When we'd entered my room, Jasper had hardly given me a moment's notice before he was locking the door and tugging my clothes off. My shirt was flung somewhere, I think, and my pants have long since fallen down to my ankles. While my tailbone is pressed to my bedroom's dresser, Jazz is kneeling before me, still clothed while his left hand is shoved down his unbuttoned pants to stroke himself.

Such a good multitasker, he is.

His other hand covers my lips to muffle the occasional loud groan, seeing as my parents are home and we're just upstairs, and we _really_ shouldn't get caught doing this. But rather than keep his hand there, I take two of his long fingers into my mouth, sucking them down to the knuckle at the same unbearably slow pace he's using. He moans around my cock and withdraws his wet fingers before I can tease him anymore.

It doesn't surprise me when a fingertip slips between my ass cheeks, touching the spot that I know has been tantalizing him all this time. He ignores my hiss of mild discomfort and presses through until his whole finger is inside me.

It's always the first finger that makes me tense. I used to be a mess at the mere thought of him penetrating me, and I've told Jasper once before to leave my ass alone until I'm mentally prepared for him. Those wimpy words had finally pushed Jasper to his breaking point, however, as he promptly bent me over his couch and made me get over that 'scaredy-cat, cop-out bullshit'. He didn't let me back up until he was able to easily fuck me with two fingers.

I didn't struggle.

Suffice it to say, fingering doesn't make me nervous anymore. Now it's just the initial intrusion that makes me stiffen, but after that, after he's coaxed my muscles to relax, it's alright. So alright.

I lean back further on the dresser and spread my knees apart. The hand that had been in his pants is suddenly at my thigh, and he lifts it, setting that leg over his shoulder.

A prickle of curiosity excites me as he does this, but he doesn't do anything new. His finger slides in and out of me, massaging the firm muscles there and getting them reacquainted with his touch.

A sigh escapes me as his second wet finger eases inside, the stinging feeling being nothing compared to the feelings yet to come. I have actually felt pleasure from this—it's nothing _unbelievably_ extraordinary, but the raw sensitivity of all those nerves is staggering. I can see why Jasper didn't completely oppose bottoming even when it isn't his cup of tea.

The best part is that Jasper knows exactly what he's doing. There's a spot inside me that he's touched once, and if his fingers sink in as far as they can go, and he presses in just the right way, I can feel it. It's as sensitive as my cock and ten times as desperate for his touch.

He brushes it now with just the tips of his fingers. My toes curl and I dig my heel into his back, and he smirks again, pressing those lips to the base of my cock as his fingers locate the same spot and press up firmly.

A shudder rocks me and I gasp words of encouragement. My hands automatically pet his hair as he continues to apply pressure there, and it feels so fucking great, especially when his hot mouth envelops my tip again. His fingers are practically _stabbing_ that spot. Why _the fuck_ does that feel so good?

Jasper prefers gentle, stroking touches, but he's figured out that more pressure equals more pleasure for me. I moan through my teeth and my hands twitch, resisting the urge to push his mouth further down on my dick. My patience is quickly beginning to wear thin.

He eases off at the sound, his tongue swiping around the head, still lightly prodding his fingers inside me. My balls tighten and I briefly wonder if it's possible to cum just like this, with his fingers in me, his mouth doing next to nothing.

I'm not able to find out. Jazz completely stops what he's doing and stands up before I have time to react. Grabbing my hand, he pulls me off of the dresser and leads me to the bed.

The bed?

Still addled by lust, I attempt to sit down, unsure of what he's planning to do to me next. But he fucking _spanks_ my ass hard and orders me to get into the doggy-style position instead.

_Fuck._

Quickly shedding the rest of my clothes, I obey and rest on my elbows and knees, letting my now unattended cock hang down between my legs. Jasper retrieves my bottle of lubricant and sets it on a pillow beside my face.

The lube?

I twist my head around to watch him casually strip his t-shirt and jeans off. He palms himself through his boxers a few times before finally removing his underwear as well.

Jasper continues to pump his hard cock almost lazily as he examines my ass that's propped up in the air, just for him. He licks his lips and grabs the lube, then settles onto the bed behind me.

_Oh, shit. He's finally going to fuck me._

My teeth dig into my bottom lip as his fingers gently pry apart my cheeks. It's so bizarrely intimate to have him look at me there, and I should probably feel bashful about it, but I'm not. I _want_ him there.

"I love you," I breathe as a fingertip brushes a line between my cheeks. "You're going to fuck me now, aren't you?"

He chuckles deeply. "Mm. Want me to?"

Right then he pushes the thick, blunt head of his cock against me. I moan and grind back against him, simultaneously burrowing my face down into my pillow. "I want you to," I groan into it. "Please, Jazz."

He swears under his breath.

"You don't know how much I want to, Edward..."

His hands slide smoothly over my lower back and curl around my sides, pulling me to him until his cock is shoved fully against me, his hips pinned to my ass. I wonder so much what Jasper will feel like when he's finally inside me. How far in will he reach? How full will he make me feel?

"I love you, too," Jasper finally says. "But with that being said... No, I'm not gonna fuck you yet."

I flip myself over in zero-point-five seconds to give him a scathing glare.

Seriously?

_Seriously?_

"Why _the fuck_ not, Jazz?"

Jasper's lips curl up in amusement and he leans forward, urging me down into a supine position. Reluctantly, I let him kiss my mouth, despite being somewhat pissed that he's now the one circumventing.

I thought we were inching past that crap.

"Turn over," he murmurs after leaving another kiss on my chin. "I said I want you doggy-style. I'm not gonna say it again."

Oh, God.

He still wants to do something to me in that position. I'm sure it concerns my derriere, and the probing of said body part. Waiting for a sign of his next move, I flip back onto my knees and elbows, still eying him cautiously. I have no idea what he wants from me if he isn't going to be inserting himself _in_ me.

I kinda wish he would.

I bite my lip again when his open mouth touches the middle of my spine. He leans over me and presses his lips to my back, leaving a trail of warm kisses as he inches lower. Jasper hesitates when he reaches the swell of my ass, and briefly, I wonder if he wants to put his mouth on me there, too.

And, honestly?

I kinda wish he would.

The hours upon hours of shameless gay porn I've been watching have obviously gotten to me.

After a decisive moment, Jasper kisses one cheek and then pulls away completely. His hand pats my other ass cheek praisingly, like one would do to a dog's head. _Good boy._

"Remember, I love you," he reminds me.

_As if I'd forget._

"'Kay," I mutter, shifting my butt under the hand that has yet to pull away. He squeezes that cheek firmly, twice, before letting go.

"But don't turn around, Edward. I have a surprise for you."

"What is it?"

"A surprise, dumbshit."

Extremely curious now, my first impulse is to turn around. I resist the urge and ball up a pillow to rest my chin on, staring at my headboard while he begins to prepare his 'surprise'. I figure I should stop questioning his intentions at this point and just go with it.

He steps off of the bed, and a moment later I hear a familiar unzipping sound. I suspect it's from his overnight bag that I thought he'd only packed with clothes.

Now I'm not so sure.

Unless... he _is_ showing me clothes as a surprise? A short-term girlfriend of mine had done such a thing once, surprising me by wearing lacy little red things one could scarcely call undergarments. Scandalously, I envision Jasper donning something similar—a red, tight, lacy thong that does nothing to hide the massive erection laying swollen across his hip.

_Ugh,_ no. I can just imagine him doing playful pelvic thrusts in that, his dick flopping every which way, and I have to chomp down on my cheek to get the appalling image out of my head.

Jasper places something on the bed near my legs, then starts to silently search my room for something else.

This waiting time feels similar to the slow, wet torture he enjoyed inflicting on me earlier, making me hold out for the good part, seeing how long my patience lasts. But this... this isn't pleasurable torture anymore. This is horrific, filled with questions of whether I'd ever enjoy seeing Jasper in lace, how Jasper is going to torment me next, and _what in the world did he just set next to me?_

I fake a stretch to nosily nudge the object with my foot, then realize it's a smallish box of some sort. Not clothes. Not _lace._

With a sigh of relief, I begin to stroke my almost-forgotten friend in the meantime. The promise of no man-lingerie brings my cock back from near death.

After almost a minute of him silently rummaging through my room—I'm just playing with myself at this point—he speaks.

"Okay, fuck it. Where is your webcam?"

Surprise immediately washes over me, but a coil of arousal tightens in my gut, knowing _why_ he wants my webcam. He wants to put on a show for others, with me in this position, so easily penetrable...

Really, I know as well as anybody that those viewers would _love_ to see little ol' virginal Edward get fingered to orgasm for the first time. It'd be embarrassing for me, and awkward, but _fuck_ does it sound like a thrillingly kinky idea.

And while neither one of us is _kinky_, exactly, we both know the pleasures of having an appreciative audience.

Assuming the secret is ruined, I slowly turn over and take in Jasper's appearance. He looks appropriately disappointed for ruining the fun, but... he's nude, and aroused still. His physique is, as always, enough to make me lose any words I'd had prepared.

"I was hoping it'd be a _good_ surprise," he explains nervously at my silence.

A smile pulls at my lips at the sight of his uneasiness. Does he really think I could be upset by the idea of being on camera? That ship sailed a _long_ time ago.

"I've been on webcam many times before, though, Jazz," I remind him reassuringly. "You could ask me to turn the camera on anytime and I wouldn't object. You know that."

He scratches at the back of his neck.

"Ah, well... That's not everything, Edward."

With slow, deliberate steps, Jasper walks to the bed and picks up the box he'd placed there. It's unlabeled, and significantly wider than it is long; still small enough to be easily tucked in his bag. I wonder what could fit inside such a thing.

As if sensing my unsaid question, he opens it and shows me.

And, honestly?

Not once did I consider him using his favorite vibrator on _me_.

* * *

I should have considered it.

God, I should have considered it, and I should have begged him to do this to me sooner.

I don't know where the webcam is anymore, or the laptop, or Jasper; all of my focus is concentrated on my prostate, where Jasper is pressing the head of the fake cock against me.

The pleasure is literally fucking blinding, numbing all of my other senses. Each vibration it gives off is like a miniature, personal earthquake, shaking me down to my core until I'm utterly disoriented, losing my grasp on everything around me. Every part of me clenches sporadically at the myriad of sensations; my stomach, my fists, my jaw, my ass, everything tightens as I try to control myself, prevent myself from pressing back against the dildo that's halfway inside me.

I want it deeper.

I want the real thing.

But, fuck, I don't want him to move an inch.

My leg spasms beneath me—it's a struggle just to stay on all fours. My breath is labored, my voice too rough. Sweat and precum are both dripping off of me and I don't care. This feels too fucking good to care.

He slips the vibrator away from that spot and pushes it all the way in, its whole length of six inches, and I can feel it all, so deep inside. I moan his name loudly and squeeze my cock, no longer even having to stroke it to feel the intensity.

"Shh," Jasper tries to quiet me, and for a second, I halfheartedly try to listen. But then he moves the vibrator out and back in, and the pleasure is back at full force, and I can't shut up.

I shake and shudder as he pushes the vibrator all the way inside. The fiercely sharp burn still lingers in the background, and I can feel my muscles resisting, but the vibrations are resounding so much deeper that the pain feels almost trivial in comparison.

"Everyone adores you," Jasper says, calling attention to the fact that we have an online audience. "What a needy, greedy bottom, they're saying. They all want me to fuck you. You want that, too, don't you?"

I can only grunt an affirmation.

As my hand jerks my cock a bit, I can't help but push back against the vibrator, wanting to feel something more, deeper inside of me. I never would have imagined myself feeling this way; I knew bottoming could feel alright for some, and I'd felt the slight sensations of those nerves before, but I'd never imagined they could be so powerful.

Everything is amplified because he's using a vibrator. The real thing won't feel this way. A part of me sincerely hopes that is true, because if it always felt this good I probably _would_ become a so-called needy, greedy, 'cock-hungry bottom for life'.

His words, not mine.

"When I bottom..." I begin to ask breathlessly. I watch as another bead of sweat drips off of my face and take a deep breath. "When I bottom, will it feel this good?"

He barks a laugh suddenly, but it's not because of me.

Jasper pulls the vibrator out slowly, humming at the sound of my resulting whimper. He turns it off and sets it on the towel spread beneath me. Thankfully he was thoughtful enough to think that far ahead, knowing I could potentially cum all over my bed this way.

The keys on my laptop clack jerkily as he types something to our viewers, probably to the one that made him laugh. I try not to feel jealous that he's replying to them first, or that our audience holds a portion of his attention while he's doing this to me.

Needy, indeed.

"Maybe not," he answers me after just a few seconds. "Bottoming will feel very different from this. You can't really compare the two."

Rather than return to the vibrator, he reaches between my legs to replace my hand with his. As soon as he grips my cock, I turn my body over to lie on my back, ignoring his pointed look of protest.

"How so?" I ask, single-handedly wrapping the dildo in the towel and shoving it aside. Despite how awesome the assplay was, a handjob is the more logical solution for making me cum. I _want_ to fucking cum already, I've been teased and frustrated for almost an hour now.

There's only so much a man can take, dammit.

Protesting my actions again, he takes the vibrator out from the towel and repositions it between my legs. With his other hand still wrapped around me, he begins to ease it inside, and I have to clench my teeth to keep from cursing at the sting it revives.

But, oh, do I still love the feel of it.

His fist strokes up just as he pushes the fake penis in further, centimeter by centimeter until the flared end is resting against my skin. "My dick may not be able to vibrate," he says, tilting the hard object upward until the tip of it is poking me wonderfully, somewhere far inside. "But I _can_ go a lot deeper."

He turns the vibrator on.

"Oh, fuck," I moan, trying to resist the urge to arch upward. My eyes squeeze shut automatically at the feel of those lovely vibrations. Not three seconds later, his lips are around my cock, his tongue licking a thick line of precum from it.

Jasper lessens the tilt of the vibrator and withdraws it until only the tip of it is inside. When he sinks it back in, I can't resist the urge to buck into his mouth and groan and groan and groan.

I think at one point I begin to babble, begging him to fuck me harder, and suck me harder, and please, _pleas_e don't stop doing that thing with your tongue.

He stops anyway, because he's being a complete douchebag today. I push his hair away from his face with my fingers and scratch his scalp lovingly, because even if he is a douchebag, he's _my_ douchebag. And he looks far too happy between my legs.

The shut-off vibrator is removed, and I squirm a little, still entirely too sensitive. Jazz wraps it in the towel and dumps them both off the side of the bed.

Hadn't I done that earlier? I resist the urge to roll my eyes at him, knowing he's making everything go _his_ way today. That's rather uncharacteristic from what I've seen of him; he'd been such a pushover before. It makes me kind of glad that he's changed, that he isn't so unobtrusive around me now that we're official.

A month of being together will do that.

He's better this way. Braver.

When he crawls over top of me, I can't help but smile weakly, kind of embarrassed once the fog of lust has cleared slightly. My dick is still rock hard, and I haven't orgasmed yet, but somehow I feel sated by him nonetheless.

I'm sated with the knowledge that I'm not restricted to being a top. Jasper and I will really have a chance at being together, without me being an insecure, inflexible little bitch about trying new things. Without him having to compromise so much.

He hovers over me with one elbow resting beside my ribcage, curling his other hand around my hip. "Not so much of a top now, huh?" he teases, nudging his nose against mine.

"You're torturing me," I complain. I kiss him though, just a little bit, and he sighs against my mouth. "And your fat ass is blocking the webcam."

Purely for emphasis, I grab a handful of said ass.

He smiles. "Lucky them, I guess."

His hips grind into mine a bit, making my cock rub against his stomach and vice versa. The hand at my hip slides down to my outer thigh and he hitches that leg up around his own.

In my mind, that action strikes me as something only a guy would do to a girl, something that makes me want to recoil. But when Jasper does it, it brings our hips closer. It helps the angle of his rutting against me so the friction feels better for us both.

I think perhaps being treated like the girl isn't as bad as I'd thought—he's not treating me as one, anyway, he's only treating me as his lover.

When I think of it like that, many of those insecurities dissipate like smoke from between my fingers. Maybe next time I won't be so distraught when he lies behind me, spooning me. Maybe I won't have a worry in the world when he finally does decide to make love to me.

Jasper's hips slowly lull their movement and he pulls back just enough to look at my face.

"I'm glad you were so receptive today," he says. The hand on my thigh returns to my hipbone and he glances down between us. "Did I hurt you earlier, with the vibrator?"

Not sure, I shift a little beneath him. There's a mild ache that hasn't yet gone away, but it's not so much pain as it is soreness. My ass simply isn't used to getting so much attention.

"I'm just a little sore," I tell him truthfully. My arms curl up around his torso and I urge him to lie down against me, just like this. "Nothing too bad. Don't worry."

Jasper allows most of his weight rest over me. The look and feel and smell of him so close is intoxicating, and I realize I've never really been in this position before. I like that he's the only person who has seen these pieces of me. I feel like a different person when he's here.

"You're going to be so tight," he whispers, ducking his head down to kiss beneath my ear. His hips rub seductively against mine, and my fingers dig into the smooth slope of his back, wordlessly asking for him to thrust harder. Let me cum, please.

He kisses my cheek. "I promise, I'll be inside you in due time."

But all too soon, our private bubble is popped. There's a series of thumps that come from another part of the house, and Jasper freezes, probably not recognizing what it is. I've run up and down the stairs in the hall enough to tell when someone's bolting up them.

The sound confuses me, though, because the only other people home are my parents, and they aren't exactly the type to _bolt_.

A couple seconds later, there's an quiet yet urgent rap of knuckles on my door.

Then I remember we're both buck-ass naked. And we can't quite answer the door like _this_.

"Shit!" I whisper-yell at Jasper, sitting upright as fast as I can. He rears back and stumbles off of the bed before I'm able to, picking up whatever clothes of mine he finds and throwing them at me. I pull a t-shirt over my head, then panic further when I realize it's turned inside out.

"The door's locked," Jasper whispers when my eyes dart to the door again, half-expecting to see a parent barge inside and catch us both pantsless. With the fear of being caught red-handed, I've lost my voice, and I don't call out to whoever is in the hall.

"Shit," I whine to myself, crawling out of bed to pull my boxers and pants on. I have to stuff my painful hard-on into my jeans, and it doesn't look like it will want to return to being flaccid anytime soon. After an hour of teasing I know it won't.

I'm surprised when that person doesn't knock again. Several moments later, though, as soon as we've hastily pulled on most of our clothes, I hear a softer creak of the staircase, and a firmer knock on the door.

"Boys," my mother hollers all too cheerfully, "din-din's ready!"

The doorknob jiggles a bit as she attempts to enter, but stops once she realizes it's locked.

"Jasper, honey, you aren't vegetarian, are you?" she calls through the door.

Jasper looks like he could throw up. I'm sure I don't look any better, and I'm _so_ fucking glad he pays attention to shit like locking the door behind us. I probably wouldn't have remembered to do that step.

With one hand tugging at his hair, he swallows nervously and replies, "No, ma'am."

"We'll be down in a few," I tell her. My voice is still gravelly, but I hope she doesn't notice.

"Okay!" she yells loudly through our paper-thin walls. And then she leaves.

I'm a little mortified to think that they may have easily heard something, what with all the loud moaning noises coming from my room earlier. Shaking my nerves away, I zip up my pants and clean up as fast as I can, shoving my bottle of lube in a dresser drawer, kicking the towel-wrapped vibrator under the bed. I slam the laptop shut once I realize the camera's still been running. Our viewers are probably laughing their asses off at us.

Once we're dressed, Jasper stops me from opening the door and pulls me into my bathroom first. I'm still a little damp with perspiration and flushed in the cheeks from all that non-sex; I even _look_ like I've been teetering on the edge of an orgasm for an hour. Jasper dabs at my cheeks with some cold, wet tissue, trying to get the heat out of my skin. I run my fingers through his hair and attempt to straighten it back to normal.

And, of course, we wash our hands. Jasper chastises me for forgetting to do that, and I flush harder, thinking about where his hands have been today.

After that we only have to wait for my boner to go away. I rest my forehead against a wall and wait a few minutes longer, thinking only about the very unprovocative barbecue brisket Mom's been cooking, waiting until my dick's fifty-one percent deflated to leave. When I look presentable, I take Jasper's squeaky clean hand in mine, and we exit the room.

We're stopped abruptly in the hallway, though, and I just about shit myself and drop his hand like it's on fire.

"Edward," my father says, lingering in the hallway in front of my room as if it's quite normal to stand there. "Please keep your door open while you have guests over."

I blink.

Okay, so... he knows we were fooling around, then? Odd that I don't get the urge to projectile vomit like I thought I would've at that information.

But then I wonder if my mom's heard anything, and the nauseousness bubbles up inside me at the thought. That would be dreadful. I hope, desperately _hope_ she's still in the dark, deluding herself if need be.

But why my father would want my door open, I'm not completely sure—when I was in high school, he was the coolest type of dad, one that would turn a blind eye when I brought a girl up to my room. He bought me condoms and shit and I never had to leave the door open then.

So why the _fuck_ does he care now, when I'm with a boy?

"Why?" I ask him a tad bit too defensively. "Dad, I'm an _adult_."

He shakes his head, and his mouth tightens as if he's tasted something sour. It isn't an expression he makes often. "You don't act like one most of the time, son. Live in your _own_ house if you want to behave like an adult. I don't want that sort of thing going on in mine."

_That sort of thing._ He accentuates each word, like the thought of what we could possibly be doing in my room disgusts him.

"What 'sort of thing'?" I ask, this time bordering on angry. He shakes his head again and moves to walk past us, but I shove him back into the wall to stop him, suddenly pissed off. "Hey!" I whisper as loudly as I dare. "What the fuck, Dad? I thought you were okay with this."

Jasper's hand closes over my fingers that are wrapped in my father's button-up shirt. He pries them off of him, then lets our arms hang down between us, his warm hand forcefully locking mine in place.

I don't struggle.

"Stop, Edward," Jasper tells me quietly, gently squeezing my fingers. The familiarity of his touch calms me a little, just enough to make me let go of the majority of my anger. Now I just feel hurt, and upset that my father wasn't as understanding as he'd appeared to be.

Was understanding too much to ask him for? Really?

My father stares at me, wide-eyed with surprise, like he can't believe I would dare to grab him like that. As far as I can remember, I never have. I'm not that type.

His eyes lower to where Jasper's hand is wrapped around mine. I don't know why—perhaps to add fuel to the fire, or to rub salt in his wounds—I open my hand and twine my fingers with each of Jasper's, holding him to me.

That action says everything there is to be said.

My father's gaze lingers on both of us for a moment, but then he turns his head to look down the hall, to the staircase. His sour expression twists into a stone-faced one, and I can't tell what he's thinking anymore, looking away from me like that.

The little boy in me wants to pull his attention back. I want to throw a tantrum and make him look at me, pay attention to me, _talk_ to me, but Jazz tightens his hand around my own again and I can do nothing. I do nothing but watch him, fearing what he might say next.

"Sir," Jasper starts.

"Your mother was wondering why you're always upstairs with him, with your door locked," Dad says, turning his head back to look at us. "She thought you may have been smoking pot or something. Thought maybe Jasper was a bad influence."

His eyes slide over to Jasper, whose grip has slackened at his voice. "I told her she'd be able to smell it on you if you were. She raised you too well for that."

Marijuana? Is that all Mom's worried about?

I want to breathe a sigh of relief at knowing my mom _is_ still ignorant of my big secret, despite how transparent I've behaved these past months. But I'm not relieved, because I don't know where my dad is going with this.

"You're lucky I was able to give you a warning knock, before she came up here and heard something she shouldn't have."

His words suddenly make sense, and realization blankets me thickly. It isn't a pleasant feeling.

Carlisle must have been the one who had bolted up the staircase. He was the one who knocked softly, just before my mother came up the stairs and knocked herself.

He was alerting us to danger. Making sure we were quiet.

The thought of my father going out of his way to keep my secret safe is... just like him, actually. My tongue feels glued to the roof of my mouth, and I'm too shocked to thank him at first. Guilt swirls through me for doubting him before, when he _has_ been so understanding, so inordinately _cool_ about my sexuality.

He really doesn't give a fuck about it. He just wants me to be happy.

"Thank you," I whisper with my head down, finally comprehending why he doesn't like having Jasper here. It has nothing to do with him—it's only for my best interests.

My father sighs and lifts his hand up, as if to set it on my shoulder. He draws it back before it makes contact.

"I'm not going to cover for you again," he says, attempting to sound stern. "Don't do anything here and she won't find out."

Unable to do anything else, I nod.

Dad straightens his back, and the collar of his shirt, then slips past me. He glances back once to look at Jasper and then disappears down the staircase.

I'm not sure how long I stare after him, but Jasper eventually pulls me from my trance by resting his other hand on my cheek. When I look at him, he steps close and kisses my lips once, then rests his forehead against mine.

"Don't fight him," Jasper whispers. "Whatever happens... No matter what, do not start a fight about this."

I want to curl my arm around his waist and hold him tightly against me, put my face into the safe haven of his neck. I don't. Not here.

"He's right, Jazz. We'll get caught like this."

Gently, I separate my fingers from his and step back, letting Jasper's other hand slip off of my face. He exhales slowly and rubs the nape of his neck, appearing to think to himself for a moment.

"Why do you still live with them?" he asks.

I don't know how to answer him, because honestly... I don't know.

* * *

Dinner's flow of conversation is stifled, at best. The brisket Mom had spent so long making is surely flavorful and moist, but it may as well have been tasteless and dry for how much I'm paying attention to it.

The guilty feeling slowly seeps in from all sides. A part of me wants to tell my mom already, to stop lying by omission. I know she cares about me more than herself, and she deserves to know the truth, even if it could break her heart. I wonder how the conversation would go if I told her here, with Jasper beside me and my father at my defense. Maybe it'd turn out alright.

_Mom, I'm in love with a boy._

_I love him._

Another part of me wishes I could hide it forever, but I know that that is impractical. Impossible.

Jasper is the only guest of mine who has stayed over for dinner, or for the night, since college. I'm sure my mother knows he's important to me, with how often he's around. But she has no idea just how much.

"So, what do you do for a living, Jasper?" she asks him at one point. His gaze rises from his plate to her face, where she's smiling at him in that motherly way. "I'm sure you know _Edward_ hasn't found a decent job yet, so I'm wondering. Are you two are in the same field?"

I glare at her.

At least I've _found_ a fucking job. It's not quite what I'd aspired for, yes, but it's good money while I keep searching for the perfect one. It isn't for lack of trying.

"Ah," Jasper says, setting his fork down on his plate. I don't know why he's insistent on using only a fork in front of them; my father and I are both using our fingers, too. It's fucking barbecue, dude, not French cuisine. My mother really doesn't care.

"Right now I'm just a waiter," he answers her. "Living day by day, and all that."

She gives him a curious look, and I can tell he's intrigued her. "You seem like a smart young man. Did you ever go to college, university...?"

I look down at my plate at the same time Jasper does, knowing his answer.

Education was a sensitive topic for him, the few times it had been brought up between us. All I really know is that he finished high school and then moved out to live on his own. I'd never pushed for more answers, but... I know it's not the easiest thing to ask him about.

"I did not," he says. There's a moment of silence, and then he exhales a little too loudly, shifting in his seat. "I just... I didn't have the opportunity to do anything like that."

"Oh," my mother says quietly. "I'm sorry."

My chest hurts at Jasper's words. There's a tinge of grief to them, like he wishes he could have done more, but couldn't.

My dad is the next one to speak.

"Was your family financially challenged?" he asks bluntly through a mouthful of meat.

I give him a far dirtier glare at that, but he ignores me.

"Um, not really. My mom was able to scrounge up enough for a standard tuition for me, but..." Jasper fidgets a little before picking up his fork again, using it to poke at the scraps of food on his plate. "In the end, I didn't go."

I turn to Jasper, taking in the sight of him with his eyes lowered, his face showing strangely little emotion. His body language is what gives him away, though. I'm not sure why the mention of college affects him so deeply, but he's upset, and I wish I could comfort him.

I clean my fingers off with a napkin and rest my left hand in my lap, eating only with my right hand. After a moment, I slip my hand between our side-by-side chairs, just far enough to touch his thigh with the tips of my fingers.

Jasper doesn't look at me, but his expression relaxes and he straightens up in his seat. He returns to eating the last of what's on his plate, his head turned slightly toward me. I realize I've been staring too long and look away.

"Well, why not?" my father presses.

"_Dad_," I finally exclaim. Fuck, can't he take a hint for once? For such a nice guy, he's really fucking dense sometimes.

"My mom and I weren't on the same page about some things," is all Jasper reluctantly explains. Abruptly, he rises to stand, forcing a smile at my mother. "That was delicious, Mrs. Cullen. Thank you."

Warily, I rise up from my seat to join him. "Yeah, I'm done, too. May we be excused?"

"Sure," says Mom. She stares at Jasper, ever curious as he downs the last of his beer in one go.

Sensing I'll need it, I copy him.

* * *

The curt words exchanged during dinner loop around in my head. As he and I relax outside on the front lawn, sitting in the grass in the dark, there's nothing to keep my mind from replaying his words over and over.

"Shit."

We're both sitting cross-legged, our knees touching as we sit facing each other. He's resting his weight back on one arm behind him, while his other hand fiddles with the grass, twisting and yanking out a few blades. I just stare at him with my hands in my lap.

_My mom was able to scrounge up enough for a standard tuition for me, but..._

_My mom and I weren't on the same page about some things._

_In the end, I didn't go._

"Shit," I say again.

I see him smile forlornly through the dark. Night's fallen some time ago, so we're probably being bitten to death my mosquitoes, but I don't mind much. He doesn't mind at all.

_In the end, I didn't go._

"Is that..." I start to say, but my sentence dies out. When he turns his head, I try again. "You not going to college, does that have anything to do with you being gay?"

His fingers rip some grass out of the ground, soil and all. "Yeah."

"Shit."

Jasper confessed to his mother that he was gay sometime around his senior year in high school, I know that much. He'd never explained much more to me, about how he came out, how his mom took it, or what happened to him afterward.

All I know is that it took her a month to take him back. They'd patched things up a little, I think, but he never talks about her. Three years later there's still a rift between them.

Even so, that doesn't explain his college situation now. If his mother had saved up to put him through school, why wouldn't she let him go after he'd announced he was gay? Why would that still matter at all, if she's already accepted him for all that he is?

He looks back down to the ground, attempting to rip a sturdy blade of grass into pieces with one hand. When it doesn't work well, he crumples it and tries anew.

"What happened, exactly?" I ask.

He visibly wavers. My hand curls around his calf that's in front of me, attempting to give him support through touch, just like he'd done for me.

I ask again, in just a whisper, "What happened when you came out to her?"

Finally, he looks straight at me. His hand abandons the grass pieces to hold my own over his shin. Through the darkness, he doesn't really look sad; he doesn't look like anything, actually, just thoughtful.

"It was the last day of my senior year in high school that I came out to my mom. I thought since one chapter of my life was finally over, I should start a new one immediately," he begins.

His eyes don't hold mine for long, however. He looks down between us to play with each of my fingers. "She took away all the money she'd been saving to put me through college that night," he says. "That's why I never went, why I'm working as a waiter... But I guess that's okay, 'cause I can pay for college myself, or something. Someday."

The anger spreads white-hot through me. What kind of a woman could do such a thing? To purposefully rip her only son's future out of his hands like that... I can't even imagine such a person.

"She seriously took away your college savings?" I shake my head, outraged and unable to understand any semblance of reasoning there. "I'm sorry, but... what a fucking _bitch_."

"Nah, she's a nice lady."

Jasper snickers quietly, as if it's kind of funny.

I don't see the humor here.

"She kicked me out, too," he adds after a short pause. "Alice convinced her parents to let me stay with them for a few weeks, until my mom and I got our shit together."

No, there's nothing funny about this at all.

His mother had to have been furious to kick her son out to the street for such a stupid reason. He must have been just an innocent, sweet boy back then, undeserving of whatever his malicious mother had done to him.

Does he really laugh about it now? Is it really so easy?

It makes me worry about my own situation, as selfish as that is. I know my mother isn't a bad person, and I know she loves me, despite all my faults. But if I were to tell her that my heart went against her creed, if I told her that her only son loved a man, and that the Cullen family tree may very well end with me...

I don't know how she would take it. But she would have to know, someday, if I chose to be serious with Jasper at all.

"I'm scared to tell my mom about us," I confess to Jasper. "What if she's the same way yours was?"

"She shouldn't be," he tries to reassure me. "I deserved everything that happened to me. I was a stupid, scared child."

My heart aches at his words. Honestly, does he believe he's deserved all that's happened to him? To be kicked out onto the street and have his only ticket to success torn spitefully from his grasp, only for loving the wrong kind of person, according to his mother?

"There's no way you could have deserved that. You did _nothing_ wrong, Jazz," I urge him to understand. "All you did was tell her how you felt."

He smiles bitterly and shakes his head, peering down between us at our clasped hands.

"When I told my mom that I was gay, she asked me if I knew it was a sin against God." Jasper takes a deep breath, then exhales it slowly, his smile faltering. "I basically told her I'd done a whole fucking _lot_ of sinning—and a whole lot of fucking other men, which was clearly a lie. I'd actually only had sex once before... I confessed that I had alcohol and a bag of weed stashed in my room, and condoms, and a dildo. All of which were true.

"If she was going to judge me, I felt that she should judge me for everything that I was. But I completely exaggerated my faults."

I stare at him, stunned.

At eighteen years old, alcohol, weed and condoms were things that occasionally made an appearance in my bedroom as well. But I would never have told my mother that. Jasper _did_, to show his mother what kind of person he was, even when he wasn't that bad. He was only a teenager.

"What happened?" I ask apprehensively.

"She was so upset, shaking, crying... She said she didn't know her own son anymore." He shakes his head again. "When she said that, I thought she meant that I _wasn't_ her son anymore. So I cussed her out, and she cussed me out. She threatened to not put my disrespectful ass through college—I told her to go fuck herself with her money, then left at her command. I came crawling back to her a month later with my tail in between my legs."

The month he went away—was that _his_ choice? Could he have come home sooner?

She'd only taken his college fund away because he'd cussed her out so thoroughly. Not because he was gay, but because he was disrespectful to the umpteenth degree. He was being a brat.

I stare at Jasper longer.

He squeezes my fingers.

"I was so afraid that she'd reject me because of the truth, I kept it hidden from her. And as soon as she started to question it when I did tell her, I threw everything bad at her at once." He sighs and sits up more, running the hand that had been resting behind him through his hair. "She did what she had to do, and it worked out in the end. I came home a little more mature than I was before."

I don't know how to respond. Everything I'd thought about his mother was wrong, then... She was likely a fine mother to him, but because Jasper had effectively turned his confession into a shit storm, it couldn't have turned out well regardless of how understanding she may have been.

Contemplating that, I lick my lips and ask, "Are you two on good terms now?"

He nods.

"I don't think she would've gone that far if I told her what I was feeling sooner, rather than when it became a monumental part of me," he says. "If she was beside me when I figured out that I was gay, she could have learned about it with me. I wish I had told her as soon as I suspected it."

The porch light is turned on, bathing us and the rest of the yard in a yellow glow. Mom waves at us from inside the house. Jasper smiles at her and waves back.

"Is that why you wanted me to tell my mom, as soon as possible?" I ask him.

I remember the first time we'd fooled around. The morning after, Jasper had urged me to tell my mother about us. To confess that I had these feelings for another man, despite not knowing what they meant myself.

"But I didn't understand why I liked you back then," I continue. "It was too soon for me... She could have convinced me to stop seeing you, and I wouldn't have known all of what I'd be missing."

I rub my thumb over the soft skin of his wrist, imagining what it would be like if I had never seen him again after that. Perhaps I would have continued to delude myself into thinking that I was completely straight. Where would I be then? Stuck with another girl like Bella, unable to connect with her as I should?

"Our moms are different, so it's a good thing you didn't say anything to her," Jasper tells me, looking toward the house still. "Not like that."

Jasper is still watching my mother, who is still watching us. It seems to be an old habit she has yet to kick, babysitting me from afar when I'm outside. When I was younger I had a great knack for getting into trouble out here, and I suppose she has always kept an eye on me since. I don't think she means to be nosy.

"When would be a good time to tell her about us?" I ask.

His eyes drift back to mine as he senses the weight of my question. As soon as he meets my gaze, his face softens.

I smile nervously as he sets both hands over mine between us.

"When you're sure this is what you want," he answers.

* * *

He tastes like barbecue and beer.

Jasper makes a sound of protest in his throat, but I kiss him harder, open-mouthed and deeply, just how he likes it. My hand clutches at the wet grass beside his head while his hand clutches at my shirt, as if he can't decide whether to pull me closer or push me off of him.

He calls me a stupid fucker and I laugh into his mouth.

My mother is screaming from somewhere inside the house—but it's okay.

I'm sure.


End file.
